President
Sheila C. Woodward
Sheila C. Woodward is Professor of Music and Director of Music Education at Eastern Washington University, USA. She is a native South African and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Cape Town and a Performer’s Licentiate in Organ from the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (London). She previously taught at the University of Southern California, the University of South Florida, and the University of the Western Cape.
Dr. Woodward was elected President of the IMC at the 40th General Assembly (Rabat, Morocco; November 2023) after having served three terms on the Executive Board. She was previously President of the International Society for Music Education (ISME) (2014-2016). She has served five terms on the ISME Board of Directors (2004 – 2008 and 2012 – 2016) and on numerous boards and councils in the USA and South Africa. Dr. Woodward served as Chair of the Council for Innovations of the National Association for Music Education (USA) from 2012 – 2014. She has served on numerous editorial boards, including the International Journal of Music Education (2010 – 2016) and the Journal of Popular Music Education (2017 – present). In South Africa, Dr. Woodward served as Chair of the Western Cape branch of the South African Music Educators Society (1993-1998) and as Chair of the Western Cape branch of the South African Music Therapy Society (1993-1997). She has organised and hosted multiple regional and international conferences, symposia, and professional development workshops for teachers in South Africa and the USA and assisted in the oversight of the 32nd ISME World Conference in Glasgow, Scotland, 2016. She founded and directed numerous multicultural children’s music festivals in South Africa (1994-2000), served on the Board of the Laguna Beach Music Festival (2008-2016), and on the Board of Directors of the Spokane Symphony Orchestra (2013 -2018). Dr. Woodward contributed to the development of the South African National Arts Curriculum (1994-1996).
Dr. Woodward’s research has two areas of focus: Music and Wellbeing; and Music Impacting Social Justice. She explores this from before birth to adulthood, with studies on the fetus, neonate, premature infant, young child, at-risk youth, the juvenile offender, and adult musician. She has presented at universities and conferences world-wide, and has published internationally, including chapters in Benedict, Schmidt, Spruce and Woodford’s (2015) The Oxford Handbook on Social Justice in Music Education; in Malloch and Trevarthen’s (2009) Communicative Musicality: Narratives of Expressive Gesture and Being Human, in Smith, Moir, Brennan, Rambarran and Kirkman’s (2017) The Routledge Research Companion to Popular Music Education; and in Welch, Howard, and Nix’s (2019) The Oxford Handbook of Singing.
Dr. Woodward has been awarded generous grants to promote international exchange programs, bringing South African artists to perform in the USA alongside students and professors and to host guest artists and presenters from across the globe. She has designed and directed numerous community collaborative outreach programs in both the USA and South Africa. These have included music and dance programs for low socioeconomic youth, music programs for juveniles who are either incarcerated through the legal courts or diverted to life skill programs, music education programs for inner city early childhood centers, and teaching literacy through music programs for at-risk children. Dr. Woodward has also played an active role in developing the Music for All program in the Republic of Sakha through teaching early childhood music education approaches to music teachers from across the Yakutia region.
