About Dr. Jill Trinka

Dr. Jill Trinka is an internationally acknowledged Master Teacher in the Kodály philosophy of music education. She has directed and taught in Kodály Teacher Training Institutes throughout the United States since 1980, and currently directs the West Chester University (PA) Kodály Certificate Program and teaches for the West Texas Kodály Initiative in Lubbock, TX. A past president of the Organization of American Kodály Educators (2000-2002) and 2003 recipient of their Outstanding Educator Award, Dr. Trinka is well known by children, parents, and music educators as “a dynamic, winsome, and energetic teacher and performer.” Her performances bring new life to the musical and cultural treasures of American folk music as she accompanies herself on the dulcimer, autoharp, guitar, and banjo. Jill’s publications – My Little Rooster, Bought Me a Cat, John, the Rabbit, and The Little Black Bull; Jill Trinka: The Bass Hall Children’s Concerts DVD (Ft. Worth, TX); and recordings Had a Little Rooster, There’s a Hole in the Bucket, and Old Joe Clark, with John Feierabend – are published by GIA Music. She has also published An Introduction to Playing the Lap Dulcimer; Getting More Out of Your Autoharp; An Introduction to the Folk Guitar, and An Introduction to Playing the Soprano Recorder. Dr. Trinka holds a B.S. in Music Education (University of Illinois), M.A. (Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary, as a Ford Foundation Ringer Fellow), and Ph. D. in Music Education with an Ethnomusicology and Folklore cognate (The University of Texas at Austin). From 1985 to 2019 she held academic posts at the University of Central Arkansas, The University of North Texas, University of St. Thomas, and Coastal Carolina University.

She lives in Murrells Inlet, South Carolina, and enjoys her semi-retired life of teaching older beginner guitar students, working with Level 4 students on their final projects, and dancing, swimming, walking, biking, cooking, reading, stretching, and solving puzzles.