Northern California Association of Kodály Educators
2026-2027 Workshop Season

Please see below for upcoming workshops and events!

Integrative Alexander Technique for Musicians

As Kodály educators, our bodies are our primary tools. We spend our days singing, moving, conducting, playing instruments, and modeling beautiful music-making for our students. However, the physical demands of a highly active music classroom can easily lead to vocal fatigue, tension, and everyday physical strain.

In this interactive workshop, Jane Rinard—a Kodály-trained music educator with over twenty years of classroom experience—shares practical tools from the Integrative Alexander Technique (IAT) to help you teach and perform with a greater sense of ease, freedom, and sustainability. We will explore how to release physical tightness, improve breath coordination, and cultivate a natural, poised presence that supports your teaching and your well-being.

In this session, we will explore ways to:

  • Develop physical ease while conducting, singing, and playing instruments.

  • Improve breath coordination to protect your voice through a full day of teaching.

  • Enhance confidence and poise when performing or leading a choir.

  • Gather practical, embodied ideas to bring back to your own students to encourage playful, free music-making.

What the workshop looks like:

  • Group Games and Movement: Active, low-pressure activities to experience core IAT principles together.

  • Collaborative Inquiry: Short, friendly experiments where we learn from and with each other.

  • One-on-One Coaching: Opportunities for individual participants to bring a specific challenge—such as conducting tension, instrument alignment, or vocal tightness—and work one-on-one with Jane while the group observes and learns from the process.

No prior experience with the Alexander Technique is required. Come ready to sing, move, play, and find a path to more joyful, easeful teaching!

Jane Rinard, Clinician
Saturday, October 17, 2026 from 9:00am - 12:00pm
Presentation High School
2281 Plummer Avenue, San Jose, CA, 95125
Available in person, online via Zoom, and by Zoom recording

Jane Rinard specializes in helping musicians and educators find physical ease, performance poise, and a more joyful relationship with making music. She is a certified teacher of the Integrative Alexander Technique (IAT) for Musicians, and received her certification through the Mind Body Music School. Her somatic teaching helps performers release tension, connect mind and body, and discover newfound freedom in their singing, playing, conducting, and teaching.

Jane has been teaching music for over twenty five years. She currently teaches elementary music at the San Francisco Friends School and has taught music overseas in London and Mumbai, as well as at schools throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. She has also worked as a conductor for both the Ragazzi Boys Chorus, Peninsula Girls Chorus, and Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir. 

A lifelong choral singer and soloist, Jane has performed with numerous choirs and holds a deep understanding of the unique physical demands placed on musicians. She holds a Master’s Degree in Music Education with a Kodály emphasis from Holy Names University and a Bachelor’s Degree in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley, where she studied English and French literature alongside vocal and choral music. She also completed studies in vocal performance at San Francisco State University, holds an Orff-Schulwerk certification, and has completed level-one training in Dalcroze Eurythmics.

Outside of the classroom and studio, Jane brings her passion for movement and creativity into everyday life through dancing, practicing yoga, cooking, hiking, and entertaining.

Register Here

Engaging Their Minds and Welcoming Their Hearts – Orff-Schulwerk and Children’s Choirs, a Natural Integration

Shane Troll, Clinician
Saturday, January 30, 2026, from 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Oak Knoll School
1895 Oak Knoll Ln, Menlo Park, CA 94025
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Join us for another NCAKE and NCAOSA collaboration, as innovative music educator Shane Troll integrates the Orff and Kodály approaches.

Workshop participants will experience our curriculum the way our singers do and discover how students develop exceptional musicianship while absolutely loving choir.

Participants will learn to create dynamic curriculum, implement sight-singing, cultivate age-appropriate vocal technique, and design a successful choir program.

Shane Troll holds a Master of Music in Conducting with honors and undergraduate degrees in Vocal Performance and Music Education from California State University at Chico. He is also a certified instructor from the San Francisco Orff Course with three levels of training. As a recognized and sought-after expert in music education for young singers, Shane has been the featured presenter at ACDA, National Orff, and National Children’s Choir Conferences throughout the United States. Shane’s broad-based teaching history includes roles as an elementary school instructor and entrepreneurial music educator: Before co-founding iSing Silicon Valley in 2013, he served as Associate Artistic Director of the Cantabile Youth Singers for 10 years and as Director of Music at Pinewood School for 15 years. A dynamic leader and an innovator in his approach to elementary music education, Shane is currently working on a book highlighting his strategies for integrating elementary classroom music and choir rehearsal methodologies. Shane is a proud California native, having lived in the San Francisco Bay Area throughout his life.

Register Here
Learn about past workshops

 To join OAKE and NCAKE, use the membership application on the OAKE website.
Be sure to choose NCAKE for your chapter affiliation.
Reciprocal pricing honored for NCOASA members.