Dr. McIlwain began teaching at The University of Southern Mississippi in 2013 after having teaching posts at Southeastern Louisiana University and The Florida State University. She has cultivated a positive, encouraging, and safe studio atmosphere for students to flourish as themselves. This holistic approach allows students to express themselves freely as a person and musician, which is the prime state for growth and maturation, both personally and musically.
While a music student, Dr. McIlwain experienced a performance-related injury that posed a significant threat to her career. After finding the Alexander Technique and Body Mapping she was able to recover and create a healthier and more mindful approach to music that inspired a survey of over 600 college-aged clarinetists as the basis for her doctoral treatise. When she began teaching a full studio Dr. McIlwain quickly realized that she could recognize alignment and body-use issues in her students but wasn’t sure how to address these interferences. After this realization, she started the training process to become a Licensed Body Mapping Educator. After completing the training in 2017 Dr. McIlwain was quick to incorporate the training into her clarinet teaching and has cultivated a culture of mindfulness and attention to the body and mind within her studio. Dr. McIlwain has been a member of the Association for Body Mapping Education since 2014 and is currently serving as a training mentor.
As an inspired teacher, Dr. McIlwain is co-author of three upcoming publications: Body Mapping for Clarinetists: New Frontiers in Clarinet Teaching published by GIA Publications, and The mBODYed Breath: Body Mapping, Balance, and Breathing for Musicians coming in 2024 from mBODYed Press. One of the greatest pleasures in her career is to share her knowledge of Body Mapping and clarinet pedagogy. These books bring her two passions together as a guide for all clarinetists to incorporate principles of Body Mapping into their everyday performance and teaching.
William Conable
Bill Conable is an Alexander Teacher and a musician. He is Professor Emeritus of Music at the Ohio State University, where he was active as a cellist and conductor. He began his Alexander studies with Marjorie Barstow in 1962 and continued with her over the next twenty-five years. He also studied with Frank Pierce Jones and Walter Carrington.
In 1973 at Ohio State he initiated the first class in the Alexander Technique offered at an American university. In the mid-1970s, he began developing the concept of Body-mapping, which is widely recognized as a major contribution to the theory and pedagogy of the Alexander Technique. He has presented papers and workshops on this development at Alexander teacher training courses in the US and Japan and at conventions of both Alexander teachers and music teachers. Body mapping is at the core of How to Learn the Alexander Technique, which he co-authored with Barbara Conable.
In recent years, Bill has studied energy healing with James Kepner, Carol DeSanto, Rosalyn Bruyere, and Shelby Hammitt. He is a certified Advanced Practitioner of Nervous System Energy Work, a new discipline being developed by Kepner and DeSanto. His current research centers on the integration of this work with the Alexander Technique. Bill Conable offers classes and private instruction Spokane, WA, at annual workshops in Spokane and Columbus, Ohio, and in workshops sponsored by organizations all over the world.
In recent years he has taught at KAPPA, ATA, and AQP, Alexander teacher training programs in Japan, and at CBAS in North Carolina. He has taught in Taiwan, Brazil, Chile, and Italy, among others. With Shawn Copeland, he has recently begun an expermental training course, Inter-Mountain Alexander Training, in Spokane and Boulder. He is a Teaching Member and Treasurer of ATI and a former teaching member of AmSAT.