Amber Peterson

Dr. Amber Dahlén Peterson is an Associate Professor of Music and the Mazie Barnett Kilmer Endowed Chair for Strings Education at Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas. Through this position, she conducts the South Kansas Symphony, provides private string lessons, coaches the Williams String Ensemble, and teaches music education, history, and theory courses. Dr. Peterson completed her Ph.D. in Music Education, with a cognate in Music Cognition and Psychology, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. She also holds music education degrees from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. She completed the Suzuki Violin Teacher Training program at the Cleveland Institute of Music and has earned additional graduate credit at The Ohio State University and University of Iowa. Some of her influential teachers include William Bauer, Lisa Huisman Koops, Kathleen Horvath, Lisa Boyko, Deborah Dakin, and Nobuyoshi Yasuda. Dr. Peterson has performed with many semi-professional and community symphonies, pit orchestras, and chamber ensembles throughout Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, and Ohio. She currently plays with the Delano Chamber Orchestra, the Newton Mid-Kansas Symphony, and the Hutchinson Symphony. Prior to beginning her doctorate, Dr. Peterson taught orchestra in Moline, Illinois, teaching at the elementary, middle and high school levels. She has also served on the staffs of the Cole Family Summer Music Festival, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, Illinois Summer Youth Music, Illinois Ambassadors of Music, and the Cleveland Music School Settlement. She has held leadership positions in the Illinois Music Education Association and American String Teachers Association. She currently chairs the KASTA Solo Competition and serves as an ASTA mentor and member of the Wellness Committee. Dr. Peterson’s research has primarily focused on music teacher education and music cognition. Her work has appeared in American String Teacher, Contributions to Music Education, Arts Education Policy Review, and Visions of Research in Music Education. She has presented sessions for state music education conferences in Ohio, Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, and Wisconsin, as well national conferences of the American String Teachers Association, the American Educational Research Association, the Symposium on Music Teacher Education, and the National Association for Music Education. This summer, she will be joining the faculty of the Delano Summer Youth Orchestras and will return to advising capstone projects of online graduate music education students for University of Florida.