Jenny Neff

Program Director, Music Education
Professor, Music Education

Ed.D, Immaculata University
MM, Michigan State University
BM, Michigan State University

Contact Info

Music Education

Terra Hall 920

“Teaching is an art.”

Jenny Neff has been teaching at UArts since 2018. Before joining UArts, she taught for 25 years in public schools in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Neff believes all students should have access to the arts and pathways of possibility can be created in all areas through arts education.

Biography 
Jenny L. Neff, EdD, is professor and program director of Music Education at the University of the Arts. She also serves as director of the Master of Music and Summer Music Studies programs at UArts. Neff previously taught music, —primarily, instrumental music—for 25 years in public schools at various levels (K–12) in Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Her most recent position was teaching instrumental music at Bala Cynwyd Middle School in Pennsylvania’s Lower Merion School District.
Neff earned her doctorate in Educational Leadership from Immaculata University in Pennsylvania, and her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Music Education from Michigan State University in East Lansing, where she studied horn with Douglas Campbell and Neill Saunders, and played under the batons of Eugene Corporon, Kenneth Bloomquist, and Leon Gregorian in MSU's top bands and orchestra.


Experience 

  • Neff was one of 10 writers on NAfME's (National Association for Music Education) Teaching with Primary Sources project through the Library of Congress in 2016. 
  • Neff is state representative for Pennsylvania for Women Band Directors International and serves on the organization’s grants and scholarship committee. 
  • Previously, she served two terms as eastern division representative for NAfME’s Council for Band (2016–2020) and in roles of advocacy and professional development for PMEA (Pennsylvania Music Educators Association) districts 11 and 12. 
  • She is part of the PMEA Teacher Mentor Program and serves as a trainer for PMEA’s online Model Curriculum Framework tool.
  • Neff is a co-founder of Women Banding Together, a group created in May 2020 to mentor female band directors and provide support to those of any gender who mentor female band directors. 
  • Neff conducted the Concert Band at New England Music Camp for four summers (2013–2017) and has been a guest conductor and clinician in Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania. 
  • She toured Europe for five summers (2008–2012) with high school musicians as symphonic band director and string ensemble director for American Music Abroad.
  • In 2017, Neff co-presented at the Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic and has also presented sessions for music educators in 12 other states on myriad topics, including advocacy, assessment, creating a collaborative culture, curriculum, national music standards, instructional strategies and more.
  • Neff’s doctoral research study was published in the peer-reviewed Pennsylvania Educational Leadership Journal. She has written articles for PMEA State Journal, Teaching Music Magazine and Band Directors Talk Shop, and blog posts for Alfred Music, J.W. Pepper, NAfME and Zeswitz Music. 


Explore Jenny Neff’s website.