EDUCATOR & SCHOLAR
Ted is currently the Director of Music and Arts Department Chair at Oakwood Friends School in Poughkeepsie, New York. He also teaches part-time at SUNY Dutchess and volunteers with Rising Hope, Inc., teaching or assisting with college-level courses in Fishkill Correctional Facility and Woodbourne Correctional Facility. At Oakwood, he conducts each of the school ensembles, music directs the school musicals, and develops curriculum for, and teaches, music courses for grades 6 through 12. He also founded the Community Service through the Arts class along with the Arts Exchange of Red Hook and Oakwood (AERO), a one-year creative exchange between students at Oakwood and residents of a juvenile detention center in Red Hook, NY (2017-2018). In 2020, he initiated the Oakwood Friends School Virtual Arts Lecture Series to foster student engagement and artistic activity during the COVID-19 pandemic. His students have received numerous awards and been accepted to music composition, performance, music technology, and music therapy programs at institutions including Bard College Conservatory, Boston Conservatory, Boston University, Ithaca College, the Mannes School of Music, New York University, Temple University, and Peabody Conservatory.
Ted completed his doctoral dissertation on music education in prisons at Boston University in 2017, and he continues to conduct research dealing with the role of music in promoting criminal-legal reform and social justice. He has published papers in peer-reviewed journals includingThe Journal of Band Research andQuestions, and he has presented original research in Austria, the Republic of Georgia, Germany, and the United States. Read the Full Bio
Peer-Reviewed Scholarship
Messerschmidt, E. (2020). Auf Last geht’s los: Derrida, deconstruction, and the music of James Last. In Damien Sagrillo (Ed.), Kongressbericht Wadgassen: IGEB-Biographien (119-132). LIT Verlag GmbH & Co., Vienna.
Messerschmidt, E. (2017). Change is gonna come: A mixed methods examination of people’s attitudes toward prisoners after experiences with a prison choir. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Boston, MA: Boston University.
View and Download
Messerschmidt, E. (2015). Making Music ‘Up the River’: A Brief History of Wind Music at Sing Sing Prison. The Journal of Band Research51, 58-70.
View and Download
Additional Publications
Messerschmidt, E. (2020). Bands Behind Bars: An Interview with Dr. David Osterlund, Director Emeritus of the Broad River Correctional Institution Concert Band.
The Association of Concert Bands Journal 39(1), 21-23.
Messerschmidt, E. (2009). Voice lessons for instrumentalists.
The Instrumentalist (Dec.), 46-47.
Presentations
“Auf last geht’s los: Derrida, Deconstruction, and the Music of James Last”
23rd Conference of the Internationale Gesellschaft zur Erforschung und Förderung der Blasmusik in Wadgassen, Germany, July 2018
“Change is Gonna Come: A Mixed Methods Examination of People’s Attitudes toward Prisoners after Experiences with a Prison Choir”
International Society for Music Education – Community Music Conference in Tbilisi, Republic of Georgia, July 2018
“Hinter schwedischen Gardinen: eine kurze Geschichte von Blasmusik im Gefängnis Sing Sing”
22nd Conference of the Internationale Gesellschaft zur Erforschung und Förderung der Blasmusik in Oberwölz, Austria, July 2016
“Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself? Why Some Performance Anxiety is a Good Thing”
Toastmasters Class at the Metropolitan Correctional Center, New York, NY, August 2015
Photo by Sabrina Kee