Hello, Cardinal Ridge families, scholars, and community! I'm so excited to be at CRE again this year and I'm even more excited about us exploring our worlds and finding our purpose through music.

I am originally from Mississippi, and currently a northern Virginia-based music educator and clarinetist working at CRE and teaching lessons at Music & Arts. Prior to relocating to Virginia, I taught K-5 general music in north central Florida. 

I have my Master’s of Music degree in Music Education and Clarinet Performance from the University of Florida (UF). At UF, I served as the graduate teaching assistant for the clarinet studio, and regularly performed with the UF Wind Symphony, UF Clarinet Ensemble, University Orchestra, University Opera Orchestra, UF Graduate Woodwind Quintet, and UF New Music Ensemble. Prior to my studies at UF, I graduated summa cum laude with my Bachelor’s Degree in Music Education and Clarinet Performance from the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Alabama.

As a committed educator, I have taught lessons and sectionals, instructed band camps, judged auditions, presented lectures, and given masterclasses in Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi for over 10 years. I have also extended my background as a solo, orchestral, chamber, and symphonic musician by attending the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival in New York, Clarinetopia at Michigan State University, and the Sewanee Summer Music Festival in Tennessee. Additionally, in 2018, the University of South Alabama Undergraduate Woodwind Quintet won third place at the NOLA Chamber Festival in New Orleans, LA, and, in 2019, and I won the UF Clarinet Studio Concerto Competition. I have also performed internationally in Tanzania, France, Germany, and Canada, and in the U.S. in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Texas, and Virginia.

I also serve on the Executive Board of the Daraja Music Initiative (DMI). Since the summer of 2017, I have traveled to Tanzania, Africa, where I teach general music and clarinet to primary and secondary students, and helped create the culturally responsive clarinet curriculum and books. DMI is a U.S.-based 501(c)3 non-profit organization that provides primary and secondary students in Moshi, Tanzania with an innovative, interdisciplinary summer music program that emphasizes and promotes the protection of natural resources. DMI teachers conduct classes, present performances, and organize tree plantings to foster a sincere desire for a sustainable future and educate the students and community on the connection between music and their national tree.

My music education philosophy is to emphasize a student-centered classroom and curriculum that engages students in the theory, history, and fundamentals of music, while also integrating opportunities for students to create, perform, respond, and connect to music in a way that will transcend their time in the music classroom to encourage lifelong lovers, appreciators, and engagers of music. Her primary goal is to holistically support children through music.

For more information, please visit: www.alexysbush.com