Evan Wichman

For seven years, I taught at a public school New York City where I founded a choral program, writing four years’ worth of consecutive curriculum starting with beginning music literacy, all the way to Advanced Placement Music Theory. I also served as music director for our school musicals and created a competitive acappella group, which performed in different states for adjudication. In 2021, I began my role as the IB music teacher at Beijing National Day School. Here I redesigned the IB curriculum to match the updated assessment and have engaged as music director for the school musical.

In an effort to continue my growth as a pedagogue, I have participated in workshops, fellowships, and masterclasses. In 2018, I traveled to Ecuador as a Fulbright-Hays Fellow to study the musical cultures of the people there. I brought my findings into the classroom and programmed a choral concert with this music. I also feel a responsibility to maintain my own musicianship skills. In alignment with that ideal, from 2015-2021 I served as the assistant conductor of Amor Artis, a semi-professional choir specializing in Renaissance and Baroque music.

My teaching style varies for each student. I will always begin with establishing goals with students and then designing a curriculum backwards. We can agree on benchmarks and checkpoints. If a student wants outside of lesson tasks, I can assign them. Conversely, if a student seeks a more relaxed pace, I am happy to accommodate this, too.

Part of my process relies on reflection and evaluating our own work. I will often ask students to read through their assignments and evaluate or listen to their own recordings.