Dr. Lili Levinowitz, Music Together® coauthor, will be inducted into the Early Childhood Music & Movement Association (ECMMA) Hall of Honor at the organization’s biennial conference in June 2024, as announced by ECMMA on March 13, 2024.
The nonprofit Early Childhood Music & Movement Association (ECMMA) was formed in 1986 as the first organization focused on the advancement of early childhood music and movement in research and teacher development. The organization believes appropriate, purposeful music and movement experiences enhance early childhood development and seeks to support early childhood music and movement practitioners by providing resources, advocacy, professional development, and collaboration opportunities.
Every two years, hundreds of early childhood music educators and advocates gather at the ECMMA Convention to share the latest news and research in the field. At each convention, ECMMA recognizes one individual who has had a lifetime of achievement with worldwide influence on music and movement education, by inducting them into their Early Childhood Music Hall of Honor.
Dr. Levinowitz, who serves as the Director of Research at Music Together Worldwide, holds a Bachelor of Music in Music Education from Westminster Choir College, an M.M. in Music Education Research, and Ph.D. in the Psychology of Music from Temple University, where she was director of the Children’s Music Development Program. She is also Professor Emerita at Rowan University.
As the coauthor of Music Together, in the late 1980s, Dr. Levinowitz worked with composer and Music Together Founder/Artistic Director Ken Guilmartin to create the first early childhood music education program that started at birth and focused on involvement of parents and caregivers in children’s music-learning. Music Together classes are now found in more than 3000 communities in over 40 countries.
Dr. Levinowitz has written songs that have become the soundtrack of children’s lives, trained thousands of Music Together teachers across the globe, and has been actively involved in teaching very young children as well as graduate students for decades. As an international leader on early childhood music education, her articles appear frequently in professional journals and popular magazines, and she is a sought-after presenter on early childhood music education. Susan Darrow, CEO of Music Together Worldwide, says: “We are so proud of Lili for receiving this honor from ECMMA. It is well-deserved. In the nearly four decades since she began her collaboration with Music Together founder and curriculum coauthor, Ken Guilmartin, Lili has had a tremendous impact on generations of parents, teachers, and children throughout the world. From teaching parent/child classes at our Lab School in Princeton, NJ, to training thousands of teachers around the world, Lili has spent her life sharing not only her knowledge and expertise, but also her passion for early childhood music. To this day, she continues to oversee our Research department, which is actively working with schools and other organizations using Music Together programs. On behalf of all of us at Music Together, I’d like to congratulate Lili on her induction into the Hall of Honor—and for her profound impact on the field of early childhood music.”