Jun 29, 2020
Cheryl Floyd has taught middle school band in Austin, TX for over 30 years and is one of the most highly regarded middle school band directors in the country. She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors and has commissioned or been part of the consortium for 14 works for band.
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Biography:
Cheryl Floyd completed her twenty-fifth year as Director of
Bands at Hill Country Middle School in Austin, Texas in May
2017. The Hill Country Middle School Band is recognized as
one if the exemplary middle school programs in the nation. Prior to
her tenure at Hill Country, she served as Director of Bands at
Murchison Middle School, also in Austin, for eight years.
Musical organizations under her leadership have consistently been
sited for musical excellence at both local contests and national
invitational festivals. Mrs. Floyd is recognized nationally
for her educational and musical vision and commitment at the middle
school level. In 1990 her Murchison program was the recipient
of the coveted Sudler Cup Award presented to exceptional middle
school band programs by the John Philip Sousa Foundation. The Hill
Country Middle School Band has performed at the Midwest Band and
Orchestra Clinic in 1998 and again in 2006, Music For All’s
National Concert Band Festival in Indianapolis (March 2012),and
most recently at the Western International Band Clinic (November
2014) under Mrs. Floyd’s direction.
Mrs. Floyd routinely serves as a conductor on the University of
Texas at Austin band camp faculty and has been a member of summer
music faculties at Music For All's Summer Symposium, Arkansas Tech
University, Baylor University, Texas Lutheran University Stephen F.
Austin University, University of Colorado at Boulder, and the
University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. She enjoys an active
schedule as an adjudicator, clinician, author and guest conductor
throughout the United States, having served as one of the first
women guest conductors of the United States Navy Band in
Washington, D.C. in September, 1998.
Cheryl Floyd was the recipient of the Texas Bandmasters Association
Exemplary Middle School Band Program Citation and she appeared on
the cover of the May 2005 Instrumentalist magazine which contained
a featured article on the Hill Country Middle School band
program.
In 2003, Mrs. Floyd was elected to the American
Bandmasters’ Association. She is the fifth female member of
this 225 member organization and was the first middle school band
director to be chosen for ABA membership. She serves on that
organization’s selection committee for the prestigious
Sousa/ABA/Ostwald Composition Competition.
For nearly three decades, she has maintained a keen interest
in commissioning new works for concert band and has
collaborated with such internationally recognized composers as
Frank Ticheli, Cajun Folk
Songs, Shenandoah, Bob
Margolis, Renaissance Fair, Dana
Wilson, Sang!, Ron Nelson, Courtly Airs and
Dances, Steven Barton, Hill Country Flourishes,
Chris Tucker, Twilight in the Wilderness. Catherine
McMichael, Cape Breton
Postcard, Undertow, by John
Mackey Spangled Heavens by Donald Grantham, a
consortium commission for TMEA's MS Region 18 by Viet Cuong
entitled Diamond Tide, and most
recently, Sparkle by Scott McAllister.. The
works generated by these ongoing projects have been widely
acclaimed as being among the most significant works for young
band.
A 1980 graduate of Baylor University, Mrs. Floyd has also done
graduate work at the University of Texas with Paula Crider, Robert
Duke and Karl Kraber.
Since 1985 she has served as co-principal flute with the Austin
Symphonic Band and in this capacity has performed at the Midwest
International Band and Orchestra Clinic in 1989, 1997 and 2007, the
American Bandmasters Association in 1993 and 2006 and before the
Texas Music Educators Association and Texas Bandmasters Association
on numerous occasions. She is a member of ABA, TMEA, TBA, and Phi
Beta Mu.
In 2016 she was named a Yamaha Master Educator, one of only 18 in
the nation. As such she is positioned to appear throughout the
United States as a conductor, clinician and educator representing
Yamaha. She annually serves as an evaluator for the Music For All
National Concert Band Festival and was recently appointed to the
Middle School Educational team for the Music For All Summer
Symposium. Looming on the horizon is a book to be published by GIA
Publications entitled “Middle School My Way.”
Paramount in her life is her musical family including her husband,
Richard Floyd, State Director of Music Emeritus at the University
of Texas and their son, Richard Weston, who holds a trombone
performance degree from the University of Texas and is pursuing his
musical career in Los Angeles.