Leyla Sanyer

Violinist, Camerata String Quartet,

BM, MM - Music Education
UW-Madison

Leyla Sanyer received BM and MM degrees in music education from UW Madison and most recently taught orchestra and music composition at Oregon High School.

Why do I still carry my high school memories into my latest years?  It’s the music.  Favorite memories are: hanging out with friends “jamming” during lunch, gifting Mr. Buchhauser with a glow-in-the-dark baton that we could turn out the lights and see (no windows in what we called a “hermetically sealed orchestra room”), and string quartet rehearsals in any corner we could find.  Hanging out during study hall time and listening to Rich and Chris jam on the piano and bass.  Trying to keep up with Jim and Glen in music composition.  Working with a WYSO quartet that happened to all be JMM students.  That pit...oh wait, there wasn’t a pit?  How did we do it?

Music education should be at the center of every school curriculum for every child.  It is here that they learn about the gray areas in life.  Here, where there are fewer right and wrong answers.  It is here that they learn about beauty and how to create it.  It is here that they are engaged in learning 100% of the time; cognitively, physically, affectively (emotionally).  We can only strive to help them reach their goals.  It’s up to us now.

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Sanyer has 44 years of teaching experience.  She has been chair of the CMP committee, a member of the Wisconsin Challenging Content Standards Task Force, WSMA State Honors Music Project orchestra coordinator, treasurer of WSTA and Orchestra Chair for WMEA.  She is currently immediate past president of the National Association for Music Education North Central Division, past president of the Wisconsin Music Educators Association, and WMEA Standards Chair.  Her last 20 years in the daily classroom included chamber music: classical, folk, jazz, rock, Celtic and avant garde learning for all students in a district that understood that the building was very important in helping to support the curriculum...in other words, “Form follows function.” (architect Louis Sullivan) 

As a violinist Sanyer has performed in the Camerata String Quartet and the Oakwood Chamber Players, as well as in the Madison Symphony and Wisconsin Chamber Orchestras. She has played in the pit for many Madison area musical theater productions including Cabaret, Hunchback of Notre Dame, 1776, Tuck Everlasting, Spamalot, Les Miserables, South Pacific, Ms. Saigon, Little Women and others.