Executive Board
Emery Edwards
PRESIDENT/ WEBMASTER
Emery Edwards is currently the Director of Choirs and Guitar at Eldorado High School and the Director of the Albuquerque Girl Choir in Albuquerque, NM. She has been in music education for 12 years and is a NM Level III Educator. Across New Mexico, she has made music with students of all levels, including K-5 general music, 6-12 choir, 9-12 piano and guitar. And she will never forget that one year of 2nd grade general education.
Emery received her Bachelors of Choral Music Education from Eastern New Mexico University and her Masters of Curriculum and Instruction in Mathematics from the University of Texas-Arlington.
Paul Hallsted
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
Paul Hallsted is currently teaching choir and guitar at Alma d’Arte Charter High School in Las Cruces, NM. He has been a music educator for over 35 years, teaching all levels of students, which include pre-school, elementary school, middle school, high school, and university.
Paul Hallsted received his bachelor and master degrees from New Mexico State University. He has completed three levels of Orff Certification, two levels of Kodaly Certification, and the Endorsed Trainer Program from Phyllis Weikart’s program,Education Through Movement: Building the Foundation. He has also completed level 3 of Creating Artistrywith Henry Leck.
Paul has served as a guest clinician for honor choirs throughout the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma and New York. He is active as a clinician for general music and choral workshops throughout the country. Mr. Hallsted’s most recent professional development presentation was in Wuhan, China where he presented a choral workshop, an Orff Schulwerk workshop, and rehearsed with the Tian TaiShi Buddhist Temple Choir.
Paul was inducted into the New Mexico Music Educators Hall of Fame in 2009 and received the New Mexico General Music Teacher of the Year Award in 1996. Paul has served as General Music vice president for NMMEA on two separate occasions, president of the New Mexico Chapter of American Orff-Schulwerk Association (AOSA) and as a Regional Representative for AOSA. In addition to being a faculty member for many Orff Schulwerk Teacher Education Courses, Paul has presented numerous workshops at local, state, and national levels.
Ken Miller
PAST PRESIDENT
Ken Miller retired from teaching in May 2019. Prior to retirement, Ken taught fifteen years as Chair of Fine and Performing Arts and Director of Choirs at Carlsbad HS. The CHS Troubadours, under his direction, were known for the integrity and vitality of their singing. They were a consistent top-placed choir at the NMAA State Choir Contests where they were Back-to-Back NM State Champions in 2012 & 2013. In 2019, Ken served as Acting Director of Choral Activities at Eastern New Mexico University. In addition to his teaching at ENMU, Ken is Instructor in Music at NMSU-Carlsbad.
Ken has built award-winning choirs in Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Germany where Ken and Lisa taught music at The International School of Düsseldorf, Germany. While living in Germany, Ken sang with the Düsseldorf Symphony Chorus and in a semi-professional chamber choir which recorded and toured extensively in what was then East Germany behind the Iron Curtain. As a singer in Germany, Ken sang under the batons of Kristof Penderecki, Olivier Messian, Leonard Bernstein, Bernard Haitink, Helmuth Rilling, and Bernard Klee, among the most notable.
Ken studied at Hardin-Simmons University and received his Master of Music in Choral Conducting from The University of Texas at Austin. Ken has completed post-graduate study in choral conducting at Westminster Choir College under Robert Shaw, Howard Swan, Weston Noble, and Joseph Flummerfelt. He also studied conducting under Prof. Dr. Hartmut Schmidt at the Robert Schumann Hochschüle für Musik in Düsseldorf. Ken and Lisa have four sons. Three are in university and their caboose attends Carlsbad High School. Lisa continues teaching elementary music in Carlsbad.
Elena Maietta
TREASURER
Amy Sewell
SECRETARY
Amy Sewell is in her eighteenth year of teaching elementary music in her hometown of Farmington, New Mexico. She earned degrees in Bachelors of Arts from UNM in 2007 and Masters in Education Leadership from NMHU in 2013.
Amy has been a member of ACDA since 2007. She has served New Mexico ACDA as Board Secretary for the past four years.
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Amy is active in her community as a singer in the Caliente Community Chorus under the direction of Virginia Nickels-Hircock.
Mrs. Sewell conducts and accompanies the adult and children’s choirs at her church, and also maintains a private piano studio of twenty students. Amy is most passionate about passing a love of music onto young children so they, like her, will continue their journey as life-long musicians.
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When she isn’t teaching or making music, Amy Sewell enjoys spending every available minute with her husband of twenty-six years, her three sons, daughters-in law, and two adorable grand babies.