Teaching Statement
As an educator, my role is to inspire students to close the gap between their vision of what they want to achieve and where they are in their journey. I work closely with each of my students to create a short and long-term plan for what they want to accomplish in music, their professional career, and their personal life.
Visualize, Plan, and Engage
By starting with a clear understanding of the student’s current vision for themselves, I can then encourage them to extend their vision beyond what they believe is currently possible. By guiding through goal setting, my role as a mentor allows me to see a clear timeline of progress or regression in my students’ goals – with regression often being an indicator of a possible new direction for opportunity, growth, and development.
As a trumpet teacher, the four fundamental elements that I impart to my students are strong fundamentals on their instrument, over-preparation of music material, always playing with a direction for their musical line in mind, and an overall awareness of how they present themselves and their craft as artist entrepreneurs. By working closely with core fundamentals books such as the “Schlossberg: Daily Drills and Technical Studies” book as well as the “Arban’s Complete Conservatory Methods for Trumpet”, I show my students how to adapt any exercise from a core group of fundamental texts to work on their current musical project.
By creating multiple opportunities both during and outside of our lessons to perform their projects with varying degrees of pressure, my students are well prepared for the professional working world. As I work with my students, I consistently show them how to present musical ideas in their current projects in the clearest way possible. This can be accomplished through tools like mapping the overall work, a written brief analysis, and group discussions so that the student begins with a clear concept of intent as they work on their project.
Preparation
Finally, as an educator, it is my role to prepare my students for interacting with audiences, other artists, arts administrators and artist managers, and others in the industry. I achieve this by working with my students to create a personal portfolio online, a professional presence in person, and a personal understanding of how they embody themselves emotionally and physically.
While my overall focus in teaching is on these four areas, my passion for diversity, equity, and inclusion is present in each of these facets. Whether it is assigning my students pieces to learn by ear alongside classical and jazz fundamental books, preparing works by underrepresented composers, recruiting students who come from diverse backgrounds to join my studio, or having a clear understanding of the cultural background of my students as we work on new projects and career goals, I am constantly thinking of new ways to create space for those who have not found performance careers accessible.
Bio
Hailed by the International Trumpet Guild for her “sweet, singing sound” and “shimmering vibrato,” Dr. Chloe Swindler thrives on finding the sweet spots of blurred genre lines. Her career includes engagements as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral musician, jazz musician, and studio musician. Chloe recently performed with pop singer Harry Styles at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, Lizzo at the BET Awards, and Vanessa Williams at the Colour of Music Festival. She is the second-prize winner of the 2019 International Trumpet Guild Solo Performance Competition and a finalist in the 2019 Yale School of Music Woolsey Concerto Competition.
As an orchestral musician, Chloe has performed under the batons of Peter Oundjian, Ken-David Masur, and Marin Alsop. As a recording artist and performer, she has played at Capitol Records (Los Angeles), Boston Symphony Hall, Dizzy’s Club (NYC), Scullers Jazz Club (Boston), and Lotte Concert Hall (Seoul, South Korea). She has served as the Trumpet Faculty for the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s YOLA National Festival, and as Music Lecturer at California State University, Los Angeles. In addition, she has led masterclasses and lectures at Shenandoah University, the Longy School of Music of Bard College, the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Colorado State University, Berklee College of Music, and the International Trumpet Guild Conference.
Chloe holds degrees from UCLA (Doctor of Musical Arts), Yale University (Master of Music), and Boston University (Bachelor of Music). Other institutions she has attended include the Royal College of Music, where she studied abroad in the fall of 2015. While pursuing her DMA degree at UCLA, she worked as Teaching Associate for the Brass Department and Trumpet Studio, and for the general education course “The Art of Listening.” Chloe also served as Co-Chair of the school’s Anti-Racism Anti-Discrimination Action Committee and led the Culture of Academia Sub-Committee.
In addition to being on faculty at the Longy School of Music, Chloe works at Berklee as the Assistant Director of Engagement and Programming for the Diversity and Inclusion Office.