Thursday, October 3, 2024
This fall, Longy School of Music of Bard College welcomes pianist and music educator Alice Tsui to its Music Teacher Education faculty. Tsui will launch the new online course Social and Emotional Learning in the Trauma-Informed Music Classroom.
“I look forward to empowering students and fellow educators worldwide and building community in healing-centered ways that affirm our identities,” said Tsui.
Alice Tsui is a Chinese American pianist, GRAMMY Music Educator Award finalist, scholar, activist, and lifelong New Yorker. She is the founding music teacher and arts coordinator at PS 532 New Bridges Elementary, an arts-integrated public elementary school in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
Tsui is also a moderator and contributor for Decolonizing the Music Room and a visionary board member of F-flat Books. Her first
Alice Tsui
children’s book, We Are Golden 我们是金的, is a bilingual Mandarin Chinese and English interactive musical e-book that speaks to antiracism, affirmation, and self-reflection through music.
“I feel joyful and fulfilled when I experience my elementary through graduate students speaking, singing, and playing their own truths and stories. Listening to my students express themselves and step into their own power is such a rewarding part of being a music educator. Our voices have power!” said Tsui.
As a product of the New York City public school system, Tsui is passionate about decolonizing, ABAR (anti-bias, anti-racist), and abolitionist public music education. She aims to empower individual and collective youth voices through music as expression and regularly facilitates professional development on topics including antiracist music education, student empowerment, and joy in the music classroom.
Tsui also lectures and presents internationally on culturally responsive and sustaining music education and trauma-informed social-emotional learning. As an activist, she uplifts the solidarities between the Black and AAPI communities. Her activism has been featured on multiple news platforms including NBC, USA Today, and NowThis News.
Tsui graduated from New York University with a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and a Master of Arts in Music Education, and from Boston University with a Doctor of Musical Arts in Music Education. She has served on the music education adjunct faculty of New York University and City University of New York Queens College’s Aaron Copland School of Music, and the piano faculty at the Manhattan School of Music summer program.
Longy’s Online Master of Music in Music Education students can begin taking courses with Alice Tsui this semester.