The National Association for Music Education (NAfME) is saddened to announce that Dorothy A. Straub, President of the Association from 1992 to 1994, passed away on September 17, 2015, in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
During her Presidency when the Association was known as MENC, she took part in the delivery of the first National Standards for Music Education to the U.S. Secretary of Education, saw the creation of the Association’s Teaching Music magazine, helped coordinate the continued growth of the Association and of strong music curricula around the United States.
Ms. Straub was K–12 Music Coordinator for the Fairfield (CT) public schools, where she also taught strings and orchestra. She was also a violist in the Greenwich Symphony and the Greater Bridgeport Symphony. She was author of numerous books and articles on standards in music education, with a special focus on stringed instruments. In all of her work, she remained committed to what she called, “Nurturing and enabling the capacity for each child to experience the excitement of music.”
In her own words: “Our overriding agenda, however, is the survival of music and the other arts for our children’s sake. The commonalities we share as music educators are far greater than the factors that separate us. In these commonalities we have great strength.” Dorothy Straub, “Synthesis,” Music Educators Journal 79, no. 1 (September 1992)
A graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington with bachelor and master degrees in music education, Straub represented NAfME at music education conferences in more than 30 states. She was involved in advocacy efforts for the arts in education as a part of the National Coalition for Music Education.
Straub was also a founder of the Fairfield County String Teachers. The Fairfield County String Festival has been effective in building string players and orchestra programs in Fairfield County. She served as conductor of the Concert Orchestra of the Greater Bridgeport Youth Orchestras for a number of years and had been a guest conductor in Connecticut, New York, Massachusetts, Iowa, Nevada, and Maine. In 1995, she received the ASTA Citation for Exceptional Leadership and Merit and the NSOA Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Connecticut Post in Bridgeport remembers a “music-world legend.”
Roz Fehr, NAfME Communications Content Developer, September 18, 2015. © National Association for Music Education (NAfME.org).
