Creating Student Community Engagement through Teaching Music Composition in the Twenty-First Century

Thank you all for your kind welcome, and a special thanks to the organizers of the Music and Society in the 21st Century Conference. I am deeply thankful to the President of Helwan University, Prof. Dr. Elsayed Ibrahim Qandil; the vice president, Prof. Dr. Imad Muhammad Abu Al-Dahab; the Dean of the Faculty of Music Education, Prof. Dr. Shereen Abdel-Lateef Badr; also Prof. Dr. Magda El-Afify; and my dear friend Prof. Dr. Nahla Mattar. I am grateful to you all. Shukran.
I am so happy to be back at Helwan University, which graciously hosted me during my Fulbright teaching fellowship in 2023. In fact, my experiences with the faculty and students at Helwan were transformative and crucial to this presentation. My topic today concerns the role of academia in addressing the increasingly diverse needs of nontraditional students, specifically in musical composition. What follows are preliminary strategies and suggestions derived from my teaching that aim to allow nontraditional students to be absorbed into and thrive within traditional music composition programs. Doing so not only grows the potential pool of composers but opens new ways of conceiving composition that can revitalize the field.
Before we advance, I want to clarify some terms. My teaching career has taken place nearly exclusively in American institutions. And while I maintain that the insights, I have
derived from these experiences are applicable across many environments, it is crucial to describe