Cynthia Crump Taggart, a Past President of The College Music Society, is Professor of Music Education at Michigan State University, where she directs and teaches in the Early Childhood Music Program of the Community Music School of Michigan State University’s College of Music. She received her B.M. and M.M. from the University of Michigan and her PhD from Temple University. As an MSU faculty member, she received the prestigious Teacher-Scholar award and the Outstanding Faculty Award. Prior to teaching at MSU, she taught at Case Western Reserve University, where she won the Undergraduate Teaching Excellence Award for the Humanities and Social Sciences. She has extensive elementary and early childhood teaching experience in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. In 2015, she was named the Outstanding Music Educator of the Year by the Michigan Music Education Association.

Dr. Taggart’s publications include co-authorship of Music Play, Jump Right In: The Music Curriculum, and Best Music for Young Band, as well as co-editorship of Learning from Young Children, The Development and Practical Applications of Music Learning Theory, and Readings in Music Learning Theory. In addition, she has written extensively for professional journals. Her research interests are community engagement, early childhood music, elementary general music, psychology of music, measurement, and music learning theory.