Martina Vasil

Martina Vasil is an Associate Professor of Music Education and Director of Graduate Studies for the School of Music. She directs summer music education programming in Modern Band, Orff Schulwerk, and Dalcroze Eurhythmics. Dr. Vasil teaches undergraduate courses in general music methods and graduate courses in qualitative research. She supervises student teachers and cooperates with the College of Education to admit music education candidates into the Teacher Education Program. Prior to her appointment at UK, Dr. Vasil taught K–8 general music and 4–8 instrumental music (band and strings) for seven years in Pennsylvania, working in parochial and public charter schools in rural, suburban, and urban areas. She has continued to teach children in grades preK–6 music at Lexington Montessori School since 2018. She has her BM and PhD in music education from West Virginia University and her MM in music education from Eastman School of Music.

Dr. Vasil is past President of the Association for Popular Music Education and continues to serve as a Board member. She is the webmaster of the Kentucky Orff-Schulwerk Chapter and is a Planning Committee Member for the Mountain Lake Colloquium for Teachers of General Music Methods. She is the faculty advisor for the University of Kentucky Boomwhacker Club (the BOOMCats), Swing Dance Club, and Sigma Alpha Iota.

Dr. Vasil has publications in the Journal of Research in Music Education, the International Journal of Music Education, the Journal of Music Teacher Education, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, the Missouri Journal of Research in Music Education, The Orff Echo, and the Bluegrass Music News. She has presented her research internationally, nationally, and regionally and is a frequent presenter for Orff chapters across the nation. Her primary research interests center on popular music education, Orff Schulwerk, and music teacher education. For her dissertation, she examined how teachers integrated both popular music and informal music learning practices into their secondary music classes to enact change in music education.

Dr. Vasil loves Doctor Who, Harry Potter, Bob's Burgers, and most things in the nerd kingdom. She is an avid runner and yogi and lives with her cats Georgie and Grogu. Her favorite band is the Beatles and she has an affinity for disco but loves all kinds of music. You might catch her playing with the gamelan ensemble at UK from time to time. Follow her on Instagram: @musicwithdrv