First Year Master Class
Connie Root
Connie Root is a retired middle school band teacher. She taught for 41 years, six in the Chippewa Falls Catholic School System, and thirty-five years in Hudson, Wisconsin.
Root received her Bachelor of Music Education from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire in 1976 and her Master’s Degree in Arts Education from UW-River Falls in 2008.
In retirement, Root is a substitute teacher for band and orchestra in area schools. Root teaches band lessons one day a week in Glenwood City, WI She maintains a private trumpet studio and performs regularly in area ensembles. She is a thirty-seven year member of the St. Croix Valley Community Band and performs with the UW-River Falls University Band. Ms. Root is a faculty member at the Shell Lake Arts Center, teaching trumpet at the summer’s Concert Band Camp.
Root is an active Wisconsin School Music Association (WSMA) master level adjudicator and also serves as a clinician for area school district Festivals and Honors Bands. Ms. Root has served as a clinician at the “Beyond the Notes” Band Festival at the Kalahari (2019), was the director of the NBA Junior High Honors Band (2019), the Wisconsin Valley Honors Band (2020), and the UWEC Middle School Honors Band (2020), and will serve as a guest clinician/conductor at the Shell Lake Arts Center Beginning Band Festival in April of 2024.
She has served three terms for the Wisconsin Music Educators Association (WMEA) as Vice President of the Northwest region of Wisconsin, and has been active with the Wisconsin Honors Project, serving as brass coach for the High School Honors Orchestra, trumpet coach of the Middle Level Honors Band, Coordinator of the Middle Level Honors Band, and State Chair of the Middle Level Honors Project.
Ms. Root was chosen by the UW-River Falls faculty as Outstanding Music Educator of the Year, is a recipient of the Hudson Education Foundation’s “Star Excellence” Education award, was chosen as the Wisconsin music teacher that “Makes a Difference” from the national School Band and Orchestra magazine, and is a recipient of WMEA’s Michael G. George Distinguished Service Award.