Dr. Christopher Selby
SCMEA President-Elect Nominee

The SCMEA nominating committee has chosen Dr. Christopher Selby as nominee for the office of president-elect of SCMEA. Petitions for nominations from the active membership will be accepted until December 1, 2008. Petitions must include ten percent of the active membership. The current SCMEA active membership is 1276. Members will vote by mail ballot sent to all members in good standing. The new president-elect will assume office on July 1, 2009.

Christopher Selby is the Orchestra Coordinator in Richland School District Two, and has been teaching at Spring Valley High School since 2005. Under his direction, the Spring Valley Chamber Orchestra has consistently earned Superiors on Grade VI music, and has recently been invited to perform at the National Orchestra Festival at the ASTA National Conference.

Dr. Selby earned his National Board Certification in the area of Early Adolescent and Young Adult Music. He holds a Masters of Music and Doctorate of Musical Arts in Orchestral Conducting from the University of South Carolina, and a Music Education degree from the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut. He is a product of the Preparatory Division of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has studied violin and viola with members of the San Francisco, Hartford, and National Symphony Orchestras.

Before joining Richland School District Two in 2001, Dr. Selby taught in Lexington Richland District Five, Richland School District One, and taught for five years in Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia. He has guest conducted at South Carolina Region Orchestras, in the Atlanta area, and at the Cazadero Performing Arts Camp in Northern California. Dr. Selby also taught for eight summers in the chamber music program at the San Francisco Conservatory.

Currently, Dr. Selby is the President of the Orchestra Division of the South Carolina Music Educators Association; he has led this organization through the restructuring of their Region and All-State Orchestras, as well as improving the clarity and rigor in the evaluation process at Concert Festival and Solo and Ensemble Festivals. In addition to teaching, his other passions include golf, cooking, reading, and playing the fiddle. Dr. Selby currently lives in Columbia with his wife, Margaret, and their children, Alex and Kate.