Mystic Middle School teacher named choral teacher of the year
Stonington — Veteran Mystic Middle School music teacher Ellen Gilbert has been named the American Choral Directors Association teacher of the year for Connecticut.
It is the first time the organization has chosen a middle school teacher, as the award typically goes to a high school or college choral director.
Over the past 20 years, Gilbert and the school’s band director, Jim Hilbie, have developed an award-winning music program that involves hundreds of students each year.
“I’m so excited. I’m over the moon about this,” she said, praising school administrators for supporting music education, parents for dropping off and picking up their children from choral practice and the students for all their hard work.
“That’s the support it takes to do this,” she said.
Gilbert’s philosophy of choral education is a simple one of inclusivity.
“Everyone has music in them. It’s our job to find it,” she said. “It doesn’t mean everyone has to be a performer. It’s like physical education, not everyone is going to be a Division-I athlete but we want them to be healthy.”
“When I hear an adult say, ‘I wish I could sing,’ it breaks my heart because they can. They just don’t know it,” she said. “If we have a student who is struggling with reading, we have strategies to help them. The same thing is true with music. I feel passionately that everyone can be taught to sing.”
She also pointed out that when babies hear music, they smile.
‘“Music touches our hearts, it brings us joy,” she said.
Gilbert, a Stonington High School graduate, began her teaching career in Bridgeport and Hartford, where she spent several years.
“I loved teaching in the inner city. It was a great experience, but it was a long drive,” she said.
Gilbert said her parents always supported her desire to teach chorus, if that’s what she wanted to do.
“They’re just terrific,” she said.
Gilbert was hired here following the death of the school's previous choral teacher. At first she taught at both Pawcatuck and Mystic Middle schools but then the decision was made to have a choral teacher at each school. Today, she teaches 200 choral students as well as 45 students comprising the school’s select chorus and practice after school.
In addition to the competitions and performances her students participate in, last month they were asked by the Eastern Connecticut Symphony Orchestra to perform an oratorio entitled “Ecce Cor Meum,” which was written by Paul McCartney, with the symphony at Connecticut College.
Gilbert was nominated for the award by her colleagues, who number 500 across the state.
To be eligible for the award, teachers have to have 11 or more years of conducting experience, be active in CT-ACDA, maintain high performance and repertoire standards, promote choral music in the community and contribute to ACDA through volunteer work in district, state, regional or national conferences and committees.
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