South Orange Music Teacher’s Creativity, Leadership Earns Praise

SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — Jacob Ezzo’s creative teaching skills and leadership are making him one of the most unique and effective music educators in New Jersey. And he’s all South Orange’s.

Ezzo, the choral director at South Orange Middle School, recently earned a top prize in the New Jersey Arts Ed Now Ambassadors competition. He scored 1st place in the State of New Jersey for the elementary/middle school category.

Essex County Freeholders Janine Bauer and Patricia Sebold presented Ezzo a commendation and praised his “creative teaching skills and leadership.”

According to a freeholder news release:

“Jacob grew up in Syracuse, New York, and attended Westminster Choir College, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Music and a Master’s degree in the Arts of Teaching. The Carnegie Hall performer began working at South Orange Middle School to help rebuild the choir program. He quickly grew the sixth to eighth grade choir of eleven to 130 students in the first year. Under his leadership, the choir later grew to 370 members.

“In the 2017-2018 school year, Jacob sought to expand the choral program by adding a social-awareness aspect to his teaching. He introduced a choral curriculum infused with project-based learning and coding/robotics. In addition to the curricular applications, he also started an after-school Robotics club that focuses on engaging underrepresented populations in the science, technology, and engineering world.

“Aside from teaching, he has been a contributing author to Inside the Choral Rehearsal, a GIA publication that discusses Laban movement and embodied rhythm theory and its application to the Music Learning Theory of Edwin Gordon.

“He has recorded three Naxos-label recordings, one of which is entitled Annelies, the first major choral setting of the Diary of Anne Frank, which was nominated for a Grammy. In 2016, he was a quarter-finalist in the Music Educator Grammy award program, and out of 4,500 initial nominees, he made it to the top 213.

“In October 2017, he also used his musical talents to give back to the community. He collaborated with Vanessa Pollock and the Keller Williams Red Relief to create a multi-town benefit concert to raise funds for hurricane and wildfire victims. The event brought together school performances from both middle school and high school, as well as local musicians from West Orange, Maplewood, South Orange, Central Jersey, and New York City. The benefit raised nearly $1,500 for victims.”

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Photo: Glen Frieson