North Carolina Music Educator Winter 2023

O
rchestra
Greetings, Orchestra teachers and string educators! I hope
you had an enjoyable holiday season and are feeling rested
and rejuvenated. It was great to see so many of you at
Conference in November; bravo to all who presented or led a group
of student performers. Congratulations to our Hall of Fame and
Teacher of the Year award recipients. Your contributions to string
education in North Carolina have been immeasurable, and the
Orchestra Section is grateful for your service.
Hall of Fame/Lifetime Achievement
Judy Booth
Judy Booth was educated in Charlotte
Mecklenburg Schools, where she started the
violin in fifth grade orchestra class. After
graduating from Garinger High School,
she earned a Bachelor of Music from UNC
Greensboro, and a Master of Education from
UNC Charlotte. She taught orchestra for
three years in Greensboro, before returning
to Charlotte where she taught 31 years in the
same two middle schools.
Booth’s groups consistently earned high ratings at MPA. For
seventeen years, she took her students to play annual concerts
in Sparta. Those concerts were the impetus to engage the North
Carolina Symphony for children’s concerts in Alleghany County.
For five years, her students were involved in a Composer-inthe-Schools
Project with the Charlotte Civic Orchestra. Very few
of her students could afford private lessons, so she tutored many
after school and over summer break; several of her students became
music teachers. After retiring, she mentored orchestra teachers who
were non-string players, and she currently teaches violin at First
Baptist West.
Booth has received several awards including the North Carolina
Symphony Maxine Swalin Award for an Outstanding Music
Educator, and Order of the Long Leaf Pine. She has been a member
of Greensboro and Winston-Salem Symphonies; and currently plays
in Union and Salisbury Symphonies. She was a founder and charter
member of the Charlotte Civic Orchestra.
Sabrina Howard
A violinist and veteran teacher, Sabrina E. Howard is the
director of orchestras at Charlotte Latin School, where she teaches
students in the fifth though twelfth grades. She serves on the faculty
Joseph Walker, Chair
of Wingate University as an adjunct
educator, teaching string methods classes
and studio lessons. She is in her ninth
year as the director of youth programs for
the Union Symphony Youth Orchestra.
During her 33-year career, Howard’s
orchestras have received superior ratings
at both state and regional competitions,
and have performed in Atlanta, Chicago,
Orlando, Williamsburg, Washington,
D.C., and Toronto.
She earned a Bachelor of Music Education from the University
of Southern Mississippi and the Master of Music Education from
the University of South Carolina. She is a past chair of the Orchestra
Section of NCMEA, and achieved National Board Certification in
2005. In 2007, she was named North Carolina’s Western Regional
Orchestra Director of the Year. In 2012, she was the Charlotte Latin
School’s Flemm Award winner for outstanding teaching.
She also has served as guest clinician/conductor and adjudicator
in North and South Carolina for All-County, All-District and
Regional orchestras. As a professional musician, she has performed
with the Meridian Symphony (Miss.); Port City Symphony (Mobile,
Ala.); Greenville Symphony (S.C.); Asheville Symphony (N.C.); and
the Union Symphony Orchestra (N.C.).
Margaret Rehder
Margaret Lou Rehder is a Winston-
Salem native. Her early studies with the
violin were with her mother, Minnie
Lou Raper, and Eugene Jacobowsky. She
graduated R.J. Reynolds High School
and earned a Bachelor of Music in violin
performance at Meredith College.
In 1979, Rehder was selected by
audition to join the Winston-Salem
Symphony, where she has served as a second violinist, a first
violinist, and currently is the assistant principal second violinist. She
taught full time with the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
from 1984 – 2020, namely at Wiley Middle School and Reynolds
High School. Her orchestras consistently earned high ratings at
adjudicated events. She has directed the WS Youth Philharmonic
since 1998.
She taught violin and orchestra at Salem College. Rehder has
developed a teaching aid for the violin called FingerTips. In 1995,
she completed graduate work at UNC School of the Arts in violin
performance. She was awarded Teacher of the Year at Wiley Middle
School for the 2002 – 2003 school year. She has been an active
member of ASTA and NCMEA, and has been WSFCS Orchestra
Teacher of the Year twice, and the Western Region Repertory
Orchestra Director for 2005. In 2008, Rehder became a National
Board Certified Music Teacher, and renewed her certification in
2018. In 2011, she established the Winston-Salem Civic Orchestra,
a community orchestra based at Reynolds High School. Robert
Moody awarded her the Winston-Salem Symphony Music
Director’s Award in 2018.
Teacher of the Year
Veronica Biscocho
Veronica (Allen) Biscocho has been the
orchestra director at Walter M. Williams
High School in Burlington since 2011.
Under her direction, the orchestra has
become a visible part of the Burlington
community. In 2017, she commissioned a
string orchestra piece entitled “Burlington
Muses” by composer Dan Locklair to
celebrate the 125 th anniversary of the
founding of Burlington, which premiered in
May 2018.
In 2018, Biscocho was awarded the North Carolina Symphony
Maxine Swalin Award for Outstanding Music Educator. In 2019,
she was the Williams High School Teacher of the Year and a finalist
for Alamance Burlington Teacher of the Year. She currently serves
as the All-County Orchestra lead teacher for Alamance Burlington
Schools and is co-chair for the Western Region Orchestra Clinic.
Biscocho mentors beginning teachers at Williams High School,
and performs as a violinist with the Elon University Orchestra and
the Chapel Hill Philharmonia. She was a North Carolina Teaching
Fellow at UNC Greensboro and graduated with a Bachelor of Music
in music education and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish; in 2018, she
completed a Master of Arts in Spanish also from UNCG.
Sara Moore
Sara Moore earned a Bachelor of Music
in music education and piano performance
from Appalachian State University, and her
Master of Music in Music Education from
the UNC Greensboro. She studied violin
from middle school through college and
always knew she wanted to be an orchestra
teacher.
Moore began her teaching career
in Durham Public Schools in 2000 at
Githens Middle School. In 2007, she created the orchestra program
at Riverside High School, where she is currently the orchestra
director. An active member of the ASTA, as well as the NAfME, she
coaches sectionals and teaches at the summer music camp at Duke
University String School. She is also an active member of Durham
Association of Educators, where she developed leadership skills in
organizing to defend and transform public schools.
Dr. Charles R. Young Dr. Daniel Castro Pantoja Dr. Nathaniel Mitchell Dr. Rotem Weinberg
The School of Music is pleased to welcome
Dr. Charles R. Young, Director, School of Music
Dr. Daniel Castro Pantoja, Assistant Professor of Musicology
Dr. Nathaniel Mitchell, Lecturer in Music Theory
Dr. Rotem Weinberg, Visiting Assistant Professor of Conducting
and Director of Orchestras
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