Our organization began with a group of driven teachers answering the call to serve fellow Tyler music teachers and students under a former coalition called Tyler Music Teachers, however the rapid expansion of the Tyler area and its surrounding municipalities marked the growing need for a new, more robust consortium of music educators. Thus, the East Texas Music Teachers Association (ETMTA) was born to fulfill the mission of shepherding the next generation of performers, composers, educators, and hobbyists alike into their fullest potentials as musicians and working professionals. Our outreach started with programs like the Baroque and Sonatina Festivals, which then branched out and led to the creation of the All-City Festival, held in Tyler’s historic Women’s Building. This festival promoted piano students under the organization’s teachers to perform works in a recital setting, enabling various pianists at a variety of levels to come and make music together.  The All-City Festival concept then evolved into what is now our annual Honors Recital, where top piano students are chosen from their respective level’s Achievement Auditions to present a concert in the University of Texas at Tyler’s grand Braithwaite Recital Hall, demonstrating for their peers, family, and mentors their remarkable growth over the past year by performing a fully-memorized piece.

Other ETMTA programs include State Convention Ensembles, State Music Theory Testing, and Composition Contest entries (all provided through our parent organizations Texas Music Teachers Association and Music Teachers National Association), our Holiday Recital, and the crown jewel of our season the Helen Elbert Collaborative Music Festival, named after one of the most distinguished music educators in the region who laid the foundation for what our organization has developed into today.