Oakwood’s Music Director Ted Messerschmidt will be travelling abroad this summer to present at two international conferences.  From July 9th to the 14th he’ll be at The International Society for Music Education Community Music Conference in Tbilisi in the Republic of Georgia. At this conference he will be presenting his dissertation research on music education in prisons.

From July 19th to the 23rd Ted will be presenting a research paper on Jacques Derrida, a French Algerian-born philosopher best known for developing a form of analysis known as deconstruction, and James Last, a German composer and big band leader of the James Last Orchestra. This paper will be presented at the biannual conference of the Internationale Gesellschaft zur Erforschung und Förderung der Blasmusik in Wadgassen, Germany. 

Ted, who has been at Oakwood since 2013, holds a B.A. in German Literature and Music from the College of William and Mary and an M.M. in Composition from George Mason University.  He received his doctorate in music education through Boston University. He is also the Orchestra Director at Marist College where he has served as the Associate Director of Bands and taught music history courses.

Ted is pictured with Oakwood junior Stefanie Quintanilla at a performance at Marist College.