Wichita State University's Director of Music Education Tom Wine has received the Harry Robert Wilson Award from the Kansas Choral Directors Association for a lifetime of achievement in the field of choral music.

The award is given annually to an outstanding member of the KCDA, who must be nominated by someone in the music profession. Wine says when he found out he was selected to win, he was grateful for the recognition from his peers.

Wine began his career in music as a high school choir director at Spartanburg High School in South Carolina.

“Probably the hardest decision I made was leaving there and deciding I wanted to go back to school because I wanted to teach teachers,” says Wine.

He received his doctorate from Florida State University, and followed Harold Pope, the university’s graduate sean of music, to Wichita State, where he started teaching aural skills and music education classes. When the director of choirs retired in 2000, Wine was appointed the interim director, and took over the position in full a year later.

His philosophy in the classroom is to give students ownership of the music as quickly as he can, something he practices when going through the rehearsal process with students.

“The more experienced the students are, the more I can let them discover the process,” says Wine. “Rather than tell them, ‘get louder’ or ‘get softer,’ I let them discover how to make the music more meaningful to the audience. I let them discover why music is an art.”

One of the projects Wine contributed to the KCDA, where he’s served in many leadership positions, was to initiate “Sing Up,” a program that pays most of the entrance fees for college students to join the KCDA. His goal was to get them involved in the program and attending the conventions earlier in their career.

In more than 35 years of teaching music in churches and schools, Wine says his favorite part is the ‘aha’ moments. In church music especially, it’s seeing the understanding of the choir when they connect to the words and discover the reason the music makes the message more important.

Though he’s receiving a lifetime achievement award, Wine isn’t slowing down. He plans to explore more methods of teaching, as well as work more in music composition.

“I still have teaching to do,” says Wine. “I’m not finished with my career and there are still goals to accomplish and things I want to do.”