2022-2023 Workshops
For this upcoming year, we will be hosting three workshops. At this time we are assuming that the workshops will be held in person at Altadore School.
There will be a subscription option this year for all 3 workshops with your membership. For updates, please follow us on social media, sign up for our mailing list, and check out our website. We are here to support you!
You can also use your Carl Orff Canada Membership, to access workshops (at member pricing) hosted by Orff Chapters across Canada.
To register for the workshops click the membership tab and workshop registration.
There will be a subscription option this year for all 3 workshops with your membership. For updates, please follow us on social media, sign up for our mailing list, and check out our website. We are here to support you!
You can also use your Carl Orff Canada Membership, to access workshops (at member pricing) hosted by Orff Chapters across Canada.
To register for the workshops click the membership tab and workshop registration.
September 24, 2022
8:30 AM - 1 PM MST
For this first workshop, there will be two amazing presenters. We will be gathered in person at Altadore School for these workshops. Heather Nail will be presenting to us live and then Franklin Willis will be presenting to us virtually. There will be no link sent out for the virtual presentation or recording after.
Heather Nail: Playful Purposeful Possibilities!
(In-person)
Franklin Willis: Teach Me About Hip Hop: Learning and Creating Hip Hop Experiences in Elementary Music
(Presenting virtually)
January 28, 2023
8:30 AM - 1 PM MST
Matthew Stensrud: Playful Procedures: Building a Community of Learners through Responsive Classroom
March 4, 2023
8:30 AM - 1 PM MST
Manju Durairaj: 21st Century Orff Schulwerk: Making Responsive Teaching and Collaborative Learning Visible
8:30 AM - 1 PM MST
For this first workshop, there will be two amazing presenters. We will be gathered in person at Altadore School for these workshops. Heather Nail will be presenting to us live and then Franklin Willis will be presenting to us virtually. There will be no link sent out for the virtual presentation or recording after.
Heather Nail: Playful Purposeful Possibilities!
(In-person)
Franklin Willis: Teach Me About Hip Hop: Learning and Creating Hip Hop Experiences in Elementary Music
(Presenting virtually)
January 28, 2023
8:30 AM - 1 PM MST
Matthew Stensrud: Playful Procedures: Building a Community of Learners through Responsive Classroom
March 4, 2023
8:30 AM - 1 PM MST
Manju Durairaj: 21st Century Orff Schulwerk: Making Responsive Teaching and Collaborative Learning Visible
Calgary Workshops
September 24, 2022
8:30 AM - 1 PM Altadore school Playful Purposeful Possibilities! with Heather Nail (presenting in-person) Start this year “Orff” with a bang! This workshop will inspire with a wide variety of kid tested, kid approved material, and give your students something to be excited about! Material presented will be adaptable across multiple grade levels. Through playful exploration and improvisation, participants will speak, move, play and sing, balancing musical self discovery and creativity with FUN! Teach Me About Hip Hop: Learning and Creating Hip Hop Experiences in Elementary Music with Franklin Willis (presenting to us virtually) The use of Hip Hop music in the elementary music classroom is becoming more prevalent as music teachers attempt to keep students actively engaged in learning. Mr. Franklin Willis will provide solutions and ideas on how to utilize Hip Hop music to enhance student engagement and cultural relevance in the elementary music classroom. The participants will also learn about the historical context in which Hip Hop was created and how that relates to students today. At the conclusion of the workshop, teachers will be encouraged to practice the strategies and ideas presented to create more diverse, inclusive classrooms that value the importance of Hip Hop music. |
January 28, 2023
8:30 AM - 1 PM Altadore school Playful Procedures: Building a Community of Learners through Responsive Classroom with Matthew Stensrud With the implementation of responsive and respectful teaching in elementary schools across the country, music educators can be an influential voice in the successful use of this process based, community driven and exploration centered approach. Today, we'll learn more about how this looks in the elementary classroom and how these ideals are a natural and playful fit in the Orff Schulwerk approach. So let's sing, dance, play, and learn! |
March 4, 2023
8:30 AM - 1 PM Altadore school 21st Century Orff Schulwerk: Making Responsive Teaching and Collaborative Learning Visible with Manju Durairaj As 21st century music educators work to ensure that learning is accessible to every student while facilitating their cognitive and social and emotional growth, they can utilize frameworks often found in general education—namely Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Teaching for Understanding, Understanding by Design, 21st Century Education, and the Teaching Tolerance Anti-Bias Framework. These frameworks are underpinned by common threads—addressing social emotional affect, building relationships, developing healthy interactions, ongoing assessment, thinking creatively, differentiation, inclusion, inspiring creativity, curiosity, and wonder, and focusing on collaborative learning as optimal learning. The 21st century Orff Schulwerk approach makes teaching and learning visible by integrating key principles from 21st century general education curriculum frameworks. Culturally responsive teaching, differentiation, student directed outcomes, authentic assessment integrated with feedback, and collaborative learning are some of the core features. In this workshop we will sing, dance and play in a responsive way. |
Other Chapter's Workshops
Using your Carl Orff Canada Membership, access workshops at member pricing hosted by Orff Chapters across Canada.
Find a list of workshops here: www.orffcanada.ca/chapter.html
Find a list of workshops here: www.orffcanada.ca/chapter.html
What is the Calgary Orff Chapter?
The Calgary Orff Chapter is a chapter of Carl Orff Canada and is dedicated to providing high quality professional development opportunities for music teachers. Through our workshops and courses we aim to help improve the quality of music education in both Calgary and the surrounding areas.
Looking for More?
Carl Orff Canada’s new Mentorship Program* offers additional support to educators who have engaged in Orff training, and assists them in linking the pedagogy of the Orff process with the realities of individual teaching situations. Educators experienced in the Orff process will partner with a teacher who is new to the Orff process to co-create an individualized mentorship program, meeting the mentee’s needs in developing their practice, deepening their understanding of Orff pedagogy, refining their artistic intentions and developing their teaching style and profile. Direct and consistent communication will occur between mentor and mentee, using a wide variety of platforms (including online and face-to-face).
If this sounds like something that you’ve been looking for, please go to the COC website, Members Only, P & P, Section R for more information, including an application form, or contact Liz Kristjanson, Mentorship Committee, Chair at past-president@orffcanada.ca. *The new Mentorship Program is not to be confused with the Levels Course Instructor Internship Program, formerly known as the Mentorship Program. |
What is Orff Schulwerk?

Orff Schulwerk, an approach to music education developed by Carl Orff, is experiential and holistic and is for all types of learners, aural, visual and kinesthetic. In Orff Schulwerk, children learn in an active way, where imitation and exploration lead to improvisation and music literacy. Speech, song, movement and instruments are the vehicles used to teach rhythm, melody, form, harmony and timbre. Carl Orff defined the ideal music for children as “never music alone, but music connected with movement, dance, and speech – not to be [merely] listened to, meaningful only in active participation.”
Orff Schulwek is built on the idea that a child must be able to feel and make rhythms and melodies before being called on to read and write music. Orff believed that a child internalized and developed ownership of a concept by experiencing the concept before it is put into words. “Experience first, intellectualize second.” In the same way that a child learns to speak before learning to read and write, he or she must have a musical language in which to feel at home before technical knowledge is introduced.
Through pitched and non-pitched percussion instruments, movement, games, singing, and rhythmic exploration, the child learns of his own innate musical talents in a way that is immediately successful and rewarding.
Orff Schulwek is built on the idea that a child must be able to feel and make rhythms and melodies before being called on to read and write music. Orff believed that a child internalized and developed ownership of a concept by experiencing the concept before it is put into words. “Experience first, intellectualize second.” In the same way that a child learns to speak before learning to read and write, he or she must have a musical language in which to feel at home before technical knowledge is introduced.
Through pitched and non-pitched percussion instruments, movement, games, singing, and rhythmic exploration, the child learns of his own innate musical talents in a way that is immediately successful and rewarding.