• 
• 

Biography

In 2023, Jonathan Dillon joined the music education faculty at the University of Utah. Dillon’s teaching interests span general music, Kodály-inspired pedagogy, and youth choral music—interests he regularly aims to innovate within and expand beyond, including engagements with critical pedagogies, songwriting, popular music, and technology. A frequent presenter on topics relating to general music education, Dillon’s recent professional development efforts include presentations at the 2022 National Conference of the Organization of American Kodály Educators and the 2021 Eastern Division Conference of the National Association for Music Education. 

Dillon’s current research interests involve the professionalization of music educators and the subject-ness of students engaged in general music education. Through this latter line of inquiry, Dillon explores ways in which general music educators, curricula, and methods enable—and/or limit—student perceptions of themselves as subjects in their own lives, as opposed to objects in the lives of others. Essentially, Dillon is interested in critical, possibility-oriented excursions in general music which seek to expand what an education in and through music can be “good for.” Dillon’s scholarship has been presented at various research conferences and accepted for publication in the International Journal of Education & the Arts, the Journal of Popular Music Education, and the Journal of General Music Education.

Dillon is a doctoral candidate at Boston University, previously studied music education at the University of Montana (MM) and the University of Alaska Fairbanks (BM), and earned a Kodály Certificate at Seattle Pacific University. Dillon was a 2017 BP Teacher of Excellence and was awarded a 2016 Alaska Arts Educator Fellowship by the Alaska State Council on the Arts.

Courses Taught

• Introduction to Music Education
• General Music Methods
• Theoretical Foundations of Music Education
• Creative Connections in Music