Dr. Lisa M. Maynard

Dr. Lisa Maynard

540-568-6465

Associate Professor,
String Music Education
Music Education Area Coordinator

B.M., University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; M.M. in Music Education, The University of Texas at Austin; Ph.D. in Music Education, The University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Lisa M. Maynard is the Coordinator of Music Education, and an Associate Professor of String Music Education at JMU. Her undergraduate courses include string techniques, orchestra literature, and instructional methodologies classes, and a Psychology of Music course. As Coordinator of the Music Education area, Dr. Maynard collaborates with JMU’s Education Support Center (based in the College of Education) in arranging Student Teacher placements and University Supervisor assignments, as well as leading the Student Teacher Seminar.

Professor Maynard also works with Music Education masters students as the area’s graduate advisor, as a Capstone Project/Thesis research advisor and supervisor, and teaches classes related to the topics of research, sociological-psychological approaches, and current practices in the field of Music Education. Dr. Maynard also works with DMA and MM students in her Music Pedagogy in Higher Education course. She enjoys working with masters and doctoral students from outside the Music Education area too, while serving as a Committee Chair and/or member on Capstone project and recital committees.

Dr. Maynard served on the faculties of Baylor University in Texas, and at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio. Lisa has experience teaching both classroom music and strings/orchestra in Brisbane, Australia, and in the Eanes Independent School District in Austin, Texas in the United States. She began graduate studies at UT Austin as a Rotary Graduate Scholarship recipient. Maynard was also a teacher, conductor, and Special Projects Coordinator in The University of Texas String Project, where she studied ‘cello and string pedagogy with Phyllis Young.

Dr. Maynard has served as Director of the JMU String Project (funded by a National String Project Consortium grant). She now serves as Director of the JMU School of Music’s YCP (Young Children’s Program) String Project and Music Games (for which instrument funding was provided by a 2017 JMU Faculty Senate Grant). These programs offer JMU Music Education majors valuable teaching experience with children from surrounding local communities.

Lisa Maynard's articles have appeared in the ISME Commission on Research in Music Education, the Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, Teaching Music, Southwestern Musician, Texas Music Education Research, Florida Music Director, and the Teaching Music through Performance in Orchestra series. She is active as a clinician and presenter at state, national, and international meetings of Music Educators, and as an adjudicator, and guest conductor for school districts.

Since 2020, professor Maynard has served as President of the Virginia Chapter of the American String Teachers Association. Dr. Maynard was awarded Honorary Research Associate status in 2017 by the Institute of Education at University College London in advance of a semester’s sabbatical hosted by Dr. Graham Welch, Chair of UCL’s Music Education area. During this time she also collaborated with Dr. Julian Knight, Director of Creative Futures UK. Both collaborations have resulted in ongoing visits (both in person and virtually) to the JMU campus prior to and post-COVID, and have enriched the learning opportunities available for JMU Music Education majors by offering an international perspective as to how the field is approached in other countries and communities outside the US.