Emilie Amrein
Associate Dean, Founding Executive Director of UTSA Arts, Interdisciplinary School for Engagement
Bio
Emilie Amrein, DMA, is a scholar, artist, educator, and activist whose professional activities resist and unsettle the boundaries of academic disciplines. Widely regarded as one of the nation’s most progressive thinkers in community arts, Amrein’s professional life traverses a number of disciplines, epistemologies, and fields. They position themselves in the confluence and trans spaces of arts education, community arts, community development, activism, and public practice in the arts.
Amrein's professional work has taken them to diverse settings, from concerts with professional arts ensembles to social practice with refugees and asylum-seekers and the incarcerated. They have given numerous talks for national and international audiences and creative workshops with community groups. Their co-authored book, Empowering Song, is considered a ground-breaking pedagogical and epistemological frame
Research Interests
- Community Arts
- Art in Social Practice
- Devised Processes in Theatre and Music Making
- Arts and Displacement
- Arts and Incarceration
- Participatory Arts-Based Research Methodologies
Degrees
- DMA in Conducting, University of Minnesota (2008)
- MM in Choral Conducing, University of Arizona (2003)
- BSOF in Music, Indiana University (2001)
Presentations
International Society for Music Education 2024 “You can’t break my soul”: Practicing Queer Joy and Resilience with LGBTQ+ Refugees. “
MayDay Group International Colloquium 2023 “In Struggle, In Song: Uncovering Community Music’s Carceral Terrain”
National Collegiate Choral Organization 2022 Keynote Address to Ninth National Conference
Association for British Choral Directors 2021 “Dreaming and Transgressing” with André de Quadros
Imagine Productions (UK) Together Twilight Session 2020 “Reimagining the Choir” with André de Quadros
Global Migrant Festival Singapore 2020 “Borders and Brutality: Music, Story, Power” with André de Quadros
Festival Coralifornia Mexico 2020 “Common Ground Voices / La Frontera” with André de Quadros;
Chorus America National Convention 2020 “Reimagining the Choir” with André de Quadros
Chorus America Leadership Development Forum 2020 “Common Ground Voices / La Frontera: Community Engaged Choral Praxis”
American Choral Director’s Association National Convention, Kansas City, MO 2019 Finding Common Ground: Choirs Engaging in Conflict Transformation
Chorus America National Convention, Chicago, IL 2018 Justice Choir Movement: The Transformative Power of Group Singing
National Service Learning Conference / NYLC, Minneapolis, MN 2016 Peregrine Music: Community Engagement & Creative Youth Development
Publications
Books de Quadros, A. & Amrein, E. (2023). Empowering Song: Music Education from the Margins, Routledge. Peer Reviewed Articles Amrein, E. & A. de Quadros. (in press, expected publication 2025).
“You can’t break my soul”: Practicing Queer Joy and Resilience with LGBTQ+ Refugees. Music and Art in Action. Chapters in Books Amrein, E. & A. de Quadros. (in press, expected publication 2025).
“Do you see what I see?”: Participatory music-making and the limits of bearing witness. In A. Emberly, (Ed.), Singing Our Stories: Young People, Forced Migration, and Meaning-Making. Brill. Amrein, E. & A. de Quadros. (in press, expected publication 2025).
Us, Interrupted: Enduring the . In L. Cathcart Frödén, K. Herrity, and A. Mangaoang, (Eds.), Sound and Detention. Routledge. Amrein, E. & A. de Quadros. (2024).
Border Transgressions: Song, Story, and Communal. In E. Morgan-Ellis & K. Norton, (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Community Singing. Oxford University Press. Amrein, E. & de Quadros, A. (2023).
Sounding in, Sounding out: Remembrance and Resistance at the Border. In A. Kenny, D. Pardue, & K. Young, (Eds.), Sonic Signatures: Music, Migration, and the City at Night. University of Michigan Press. Amrein, E., & Chamberlain, B. (2011).
The Vivaldi Gloria: A Repertoire Resource Guide. In H. Buchanan and M. Mehaffey, (Eds.), Teaching Music Through Performance in Choir, Volume 3 (pp. 567-592), GIA. Romey, K., Sweet, E. & Wanyama, S. (2009).
Building Bridges: Choruses Engaging Communities. In J. Catoni Conlon, (Ed.), Wisdom, Wit, and Will: Women Conductors on Their Art (pp. 101-127), GI
