Darling, Dennis
- Title
- Professor of Education/Director of Music Education
- Office:
- Koren 101
- Phone:
- +1.563.387.1301
- Email:
- darlingd@luther.edu
- Degree:
- Ed.D., University of Illinois.
- Interests:
- Music education
Dennis L. Darling is Professor of Music Education at Luther College, where he is committed to the preparation of music teachers. With degrees from Augustana College (Sioux Falls), the University of Iowa and the University of Illinois, he has taught music for thirty-eight years at elementary, secondary and collegiate levels. He has served as teacher trainer, conductor and consultant for music programs throughout the United States, Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. His ensembles have toured extensively and performed for state and regional conferences as well as industrial and commercial productions. For the past 25 summers he directed Celebration Iowa, a select ensemble of Iowa high school musicians, which continues to tour throughout the state of Iowa.
From 2001-2003, he completed a return to public school as a part of a sabbatical project. As such, he taught high school choral and classroom music at the John F. Kennedy School in Berlin, Germany. While in Germany, he was awarded the 2001 Outstanding Service Award to High School Music by the Iowa High School Music Association.
This past January he wrote a children’s musical based on the “Jack and the Beanstalk” story. Celebration Iowa performed the work in thirty communities throughout the state of Iowa. In August, he worked with the Sioux City Community Schools’ music faculty demonstrating new assessment tools for their fall literature. In February, he conducted a two-day workshop for the Singapore American School on integrating Orff and Kodaly pedagogies. For the Iowa Arts Council, he developed and directed the Professional Development Residency Program in which he and other arts education consultants helped local arts teachers improve the quality of their programs. For the Iowa Choral Directors Association, he developed the Choral Units Project in which Iowa choral directors developed curricular units for their choral programs. For VSA Iowa, he served as board chairperson and their advisory board.
Current research interests include the integration of technology into undergraduate music education and the development of multimedia instructional materials for elementary music students.
He is delighted to spend lots of time with Brenda, Søren (3) and Rowan (1). The latter two provide a fulsome, daily dose of joyful noise.