ESO Educator of the Year: Joseph Malmquist
Joseph Malmquist
Violinist Joseph Malmquist, a member of the Elgin Symphony Orchestra since 1981 and a career music educator, has been named the ESO’s 2024 Educator of the Year!
CEO Marc Thayer, Board Chair Bert Crossland, and Music Director Chad Goodman recognized Joe with the award in front of audiences at our May 4 and 5 concerts.
Joe is also a passionate advocate for the arts and introduced thousands of youths to orchestra music during his successful career as a music educator. Among his accomplishments:
Joe served as the director of the Schaumburg Youth Symphony Orchestra since its founding in 1989, overseeing its growth from 16 players to an organization of nearly 200 student musicians in four ensembles at the time of his retirement in 2020.
He was a nationally recognized music educator and string pedagogue, overseeing the growth of District 211's orchestra program and guiding it from less than 50 strings scattered across the five high schools to, at his retirement in 2015, a program with over 500 students and multiple orchestras in each building, with a staff of teachers among the best in the Midwest.
Joe has presented at the American String Teachers Association National Conference and the Illinois Music Educators Association (ILMEA) as well as conducting an SYSO performance there, by invitation.
Joe is a recipient of the state's Mary Hoffman Award of Excellence in Education, the Musician's Union Award for Contributions to Education, the American String Teachers Distinguished Service Award, the Board of Education Outstanding Achievement Award, and the 2014 Youth Orchestra Conductor of the Year Award.
We are honored to have Joe on our musician roster and are grateful to him for his dedication to promoting orchestra music with the youth of our community.