After a fairly typical education and start to her career as an educator and clarinetist, an ADHD diagnosis caused Meredith Gersten to reexamine traditional pedagogy, our current systems, and even her own relationship with music. Through speaking engagements and workshops, she tries to normalize talking about these topics and shows how everyone benefits when we create more inclusive systems. She hopes to use her platform to advocate for positive change and provide tools for others to do the same. 

 

You can find her online as the co-director of Clarinet HQ, an online resource for young clarinetists and their band directors. Driving much of this work is her passion for engaging beginning and intermediate players, especially those without easy access to quality instruction, and helping them establish proper clarinet techniques for lifelong success. 

 

Meredith currently teaches in the Music Program at Frederick Community College and has a private studio in the FCC Community Music Program. She taught in the public schools for ten years before relocating to Maryland after earning a certificate in nonprofit arts management from NYU. She holds degrees from the University of Kansas and the University of Northern Colorado, where her principal teachers were Larry Maxey, Bil Jackson, and Lauren Jacobson.

 

Notable domestic performances include appearances at the Texas Music Educators' Association Convention, the South Texas Flute & Clarinet Festival, ClarinetFest, and Nashville's Global Education Center. On the international stage, Meredith has performed and presented masterclasses at ClarinetFest in Oostende, Belgium and at venues throughout the United Kingdom. This summer she presented on ADHD & Practicing at ClarinetFest in Dublin, Ireland. In the fall, she will be presenting at the combined conferences for the National Association of College Woodwind & Percussion Instructors and The College Music Society.

She performs on gorgeous gold-keyed cocobolo Model F B-flat and A clarinets, as well as the Alpha bass. Meredith is a Backun artist.