Martina Vasil

Martina Vasil is an Associate Professor of Music Education and Interim Director of Undergraduate 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 music education research and popular music education. 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) in Pennsylvania, working in parochial and public charter schools in rural, suburban, and urban areas. Since 2018, she has continued to teach children in grades preK–6 music at Lexington Montessori School. 

Dr. Vasil is President of the Association for Popular Music Education and serves on the editorial board of The Orff Echo, the national journal of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association (AOSA). She is past President and 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