Biography
Bennett Reimer (b. 1932) is an American music educator and scholar. He received a Bachelors degree from the State University of New York at Fredonia in 1954, and went on to receive an MS and Ed.D from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1955 and 1963.
Reimer took several academic appointments, including the Richmond Professional Institute, College of William and Mary from 1955 to 1957, Madison College from 1958 to 1960, and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1960 to 1965. Reimer also held the Kulos Chair of Music Education at Case Western University from 1965 to 1978, and the John W. Beattie Chair of Music Education at Northwestern University from 1978 to 1997.
Reimer's writing, teaching, and lecturing have ranged over a diversity of topics including philosophy of music education, curriculum theory, research theory, multicultural issues, musical intelligences, interdisciplinary arts principles, teacher education, international music education issues and applications of cognitive psychology to music learning. A Philosophy of Music Education, published in 1970, did much to shape philosophical discourse in music education, arguing for an expanded pedagogy that focuses on more than performance and that enhances children's abilities to engage in aesthetic perceptual structuring. Reimer influenced the development of the National Standards movement, refereed literature in music education philosophy, and composition education for K-12 students.
Reimer has been director of and participant in many national and international projects, and has lectured and presented keynote addresses all over the world. Other notable publications of Reimer's include Toward an Aesthetic Education (1971), Silver Burdett Music Grades 1-8 (1974), The Arts, Education and Aesthetic Knowing (1992), and (as co-editor) On the Nature of Musical Experience (1992), as well as over 100 articles and 2 books on arts education. He was inducted into the Music Educators Hall of Fame in 2002, and received the Senior Researcher Award from the Music Educators National Conference in 2008.
