Brooks named 2014 Distinguished Alum

Joli Brooks has been named the 2014 School of Music Distinguished Alumna.

Brooks began playing the violin as a sixth grader in the public schools of Sanford, NC. Brooks performed in the orchestra at Lee Senior High School and studied violin at the Duke String School with Dorothy Kitchen. As a student at ECU, she studied with Dr. Rodney Schmidt and earned her degree in Music Education in 1983. In 2003 she also earned a Master of School Administration from East Carolina.

She has taught orchestra in Lee, Harnett, and Onslow County school systems and has served as a clinician and adjudicator in North Carolina and Virginia. She has been host and chair of various state, regional and local activities for school orchestras. She is the former concertmaster of both the Lee County Community Orchestra and the Crystal Coast Community Orchestra, and continues to perform professionally with the Crystal Strings Quartet. Brooks is National Board Certified in the area of Early Adolescent through Young Adulthood Music, and from 2004-2008 worked part-time for the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards as an evaluator.

Her school orchestras consistently earn high ratings at state orchestra and small ensemble festivals, and many of her students each year earn music awards and scholarships. Today, Brooks is the Director of Orchestras at Jacksonville High School, where she also teaches Advanced Placement Music Theory and International Baccalaureate Music, and serves as the director of the school’s Creative and Performing Arts Academy.

In 2012, she was selected by her peers as the NCMEA Eastern Regional Director of the Year and in 2013, she was awarded the Jackson Parkhurst Award for Special Achievement by the NC Symphony. She is currently a student at Boston University, where she is pursuing a doctoral degree in music education.