Six Presenters, Three Conferences: Who to Learn AI From This Season

When I see AI in a session title, the first thing I look up is the presenter. Tools change every few months. The person at the front of the room, and what they have actually done in a classroom or on a podium, tells me whether a session will hold up.

There is research behind that habit. He and Ren (2025) found that social influence, meaning what respected peers say and do, was the strongest predictor of whether educators intend to adopt AI. In a profession where most of us learn from each other, who is teaching matters a great deal.

So I went looking at who is presenting on AI at the Maryland Music Educators Association Fall In-Service, The Midwest Clinic, and the ACDA National Conference. A caveat up front: I have not seen any of these sessions. What follows comes from published bios and session abstracts, and conference schedules can change.

At a glance

1. Maryland MEA Fall In-Service, Friday, October 16, 2026. Three AI sessions, all in Room H - 1123, at 10:00 a.m., 1:30 p.m., and 2:30 p.m.
2. The Midwest Clinic, Chicago (McCormick Place West). Wednesday, December 16, 1:30 p.m. (Gene Butler), and Thursday, December 17, 4:30 p.m. (Sean Murray).
3. ACDA National Conference, Minneapolis, March 7-10, 2027. Beth Philemon. Day and time were not yet published when I looked.

Maryland MEA Fall In-Service

If you are anywhere near Maryland, this is the easiest professional development day on the list. Three presenters, one room, and three different angles on AI: a teaching toolkit, a set of boundaries, and teacher wellbeing.

Kerry J. Gilliard and A. Danielle Gilliard, 10:00 a.m.

Kerry Gilliard is the music department chair at DuVal High School in Lanham, where he directs band and string ensembles. He is also a composer and adjudicator, with a master's in conducting from Messiah University. Danielle Gilliard teaches band and orchestra at Samuel Ogle Middle School in Bowie, writes music curriculum and leads professional development for Prince George's County Public Schools, and holds a master's in curriculum and instruction from Tennessee State and a master's in computer science from Howard University.

Their abstract is the one I most want to quote in spirit. They want AI to organize your library, help you plan, and help you figure out how to teach particular skills. They do not want it to create your music, think for you, or mentor you. The session shows a few tools for augmenting what you already do "without handing over our responsibility to think," and then points out that we can teach students to use AI the same way.

Why go: I trust sessions that begin with limits. Two working band and orchestra directors, one of whom also has formal computer science training, are drawing the line between assistant and replacement. That is the conversation most teachers are quietly having with themselves.

Dr. Terry B. Ewell, 1:30 p.m.

Terry Ewell is a professor at Towson University and one of the best-known bassoon pedagogues in the world. He was principal bassoon of the Hong Kong Philharmonic for seven years, served as president of the International Double Reed Society, chaired Towson's music department from 2000 to 2009, and was the first music faculty member there to teach online. His "Bassoon Digital Professor" series runs past 750 videos, with more than a million and a half views and translations into eleven languages. He has published over 100 articles and a free bassoon method book.

His session is about teachers, not students. It explores how large language models like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude can act as wellness partners, with examples from exercise planning to sleep and diet tracking. Bring a laptop; it is hands-on.

Why go: Ewell has spent decades building digital instruction before AI made it fashionable, so he knows how to teach with technology. I will say honestly that this is the session I would attend with the most critical eye. A language model is not a clinician, and health topics deserve care. But a session that puts the teacher's wellbeing at the center is overdue, and a presenter with this track record is the right person to lead it.

Dr. Peter J. Perry, 2:30 p.m., "Sound Intelligence: Practical AI Tools for the Music Classroom"

Peter Perry has directed instrumental music at Richard Montgomery High School in Rockville for more than two decades and has taught instrumental methods at The Catholic University of America. He holds a doctorate in music education from Shenandoah Conservatory. His dissertation examined how flexible-practice, computer-assisted instruction with SmartMusic affected performance skill development in high school instrumentalists, and he is the author of a book of technology tips for ensemble teachers.

The abstract promises lesson planning, differentiated materials, and student feedback, plus music-specific uses in composition, ear training, notation, and assessment. It also promises "a principled framework for deciding when and how AI belongs in your program."

Why go: Perry was asking research-grade questions about technology in the rehearsal room long before generative AI arrived. A framework for deciding when AI belongs is exactly what a department, or an administrator writing a policy, needs to take home.

The Midwest Clinic

The Midwest Clinic schedule is dense with band and orchestra pedagogy, and AI is a small slice of it. That makes these two sessions easy to miss. Please do not miss them.

Dr. Gene Butler, "AI in Music Education: Where Do I Even Start?"

Wednesday, December 16, 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., Room W178.

Gene Butler is Director of Bands at Smiths Station High School in Alabama and an adjunct instructor at Troy University. He holds an Ed.D. in curriculum and leadership from Columbus State. Under his leadership the Smiths Station band program has grown from 316 to more than 550 students. He was named a 2025 Yamaha "40 Under 40" music educator, writes for Yamaha, and serves as president-elect of the Alabama Bandmasters Association.

His session introduces AI using the SAMR model, a long-standing education technology framework that sorts technology use into four levels: substitution, augmentation, modification, and redefinition. The point is to ask whether a tool merely swaps in for an old task or actually changes what is possible. The abstract promises classroom-ready examples that support learning "without replacing best practices."

Why go: The title is the question I hear from directors more than any other. Butler pairs a curriculum and leadership doctorate with a program that has grown by hundreds of students, so he knows what happens when you try to change a large program. If you have been waiting for someone to tell you where to begin, start here.

Dr. Sean Murray, "The Future is Now: Using AI to Power Social Media Campaigns for Instrumental Music Programs"

Thursday, December 17, 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., Room W179.

Sean Murray is Associate Professor of Music and Director of Bands at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he has led the Marching Blazers and Wind Symphony since 2017. Before that he spent eleven years at Florida Atlantic University. He earned his Ph.D. at Florida State. At the 2022 Midwest Clinic he presented on building a visual brand for a music program, so this session extends work he has been doing for years.

The session covers AI tools for recruiting, growing audiences, and telling your program's story across digital platforms while saving time.

Why go: Marketing and recruitment may be the least glamorous AI use case and the one that pays back fastest. Most directors I know have more stories worth telling than hours to tell them. One honest suggestion before you post anything: check your district's policy on student images and AI-generated content.

The ACDA National Conference

Beth Philemon, "More Human Than Ever: Choral Music in the Age of AI"

Minneapolis, March 7-10, 2027. Lecture; the day and time had not been published when I checked.

Beth Philemon is the founder of ChoirBaton and has hosted its podcast for choral directors since 2018. She holds a master's in choral conducting from Northern Arizona University and an MBA from NC State, and she has AI implementation experience with Fortune 500 technology companies. Earlier this year she released a podcast episode on why choral music needs to pay attention to AI, walking through classical AI, machine learning, generative AI, and agentic AI with musical analogies.

Her session places AI in the long line of technologies choral music has absorbed, from the printing press to the phonograph. Her argument is that each one took over a task, freed people for higher-order artistry, and eventually became invisible. As agentic AI takes on more cognitive labor, she suggests, we may see the same conditions that gave rise to the great choral societies of the Industrial Revolution. Attendees leave with an advocacy framework.

Why go: It was the only AI-titled session I could find at a national conference this season, and the presenter has stood on both sides, as a choral musician and as someone who has put AI into large organizations. In my own TCDA research, professional identity threat stood out as a choral-specific barrier to adoption. This session takes that fear head on. I will go in wanting to hear how she handles the people a technological shift leaves behind, because the printing press story has losers too. A good lecture invites that question.

Why make the effort

You can read about AI in music education anywhere. What you cannot get from a screen is the room: the follow-up question from the director two seats over, the hallway conversation afterward, the moment you realize someone with a classroom just like yours has already solved the problem you are stuck on. That is social influence at work, and the research says it is what moves people from curiosity to use.

If you are an administrator, consider what these six sessions cover together: a framework for deciding when AI belongs in a program (Perry), limits on what AI should do (the Gilliards), where to start (Butler), recruitment and communication (Murray), teacher wellbeing (Ewell), and advocacy (Philemon). That is a reasonable case for sending a director.

If you go to any of these, I would love to hear what you took away.

Matt Woodward spent 18 years as a choral director and is co-founder of MusEdLab.ai, which builds AI tools for music educators.

Sources

1. Maryland MEA Fall In-Service session pages (2026mmeafallinservice.sched.com)
2. The Midwest Clinic: clinician pages for Gene Butler and Sean Murray; 2026 schedule of events
3. ACDA: session page for "More Human Than Ever: Choral Music in the Age of AI"
4. Presenter bios: Troy University, Yamaha Educators Hub, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Towson University, The Catholic University of America, ChoirBaton