David Saccardi

Assistant Professor of Music Education

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Biography

David Saccardi is Assistant Professor of Music Education at Louisiana State University, where he directs graduate research and teaches courses in the psychology of music, graduate string pedagogy, quantitative analysis, and experimental design in addition to teaching courses in the undergraduate music teacher preparation sequence.

Dr. Saccardi’s research interests lie at the intersection of music and science. Through collaborations across the LSU campus with departments such as cognitive psychology and biomedical science and his involvement with the LSU Multidisciplinary Initiative for Neuroscience Discovery (MIND), he and his collaborators examine questions related to music cognition and perception, biological markers of music cognition, and the psychology of music. Additionally, his research in music education as a member of the Translational Research in Music Group (TRMG) examines peer-assisted learning in music classrooms, parental involvement in music instruction, and pedagogical topics in string education. His work has been published in the Bulletin for the Council of Research in Music Education, Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, Texas Music Education Research, American String Teacher, and the American Suzuki Journal. He currently serves on the editorial board for American String Teacher.

Prior to joining the faculty at LSU, Saccardi taught middle and high school orchestra in Loveland, Colorado and was the orchestra director at Hummingbird Music Camp in New Mexico. Orchestras under his direction were ranked consistently as superior at state music contests and musical theatre productions under his music direction were nominated for numerous awards. He has also performed on double bass with regional orchestras in Northern Colorado, Wyoming, and Central Texas and has been an active double bass studio teacher since 2003. He is an active string adjudicator and clinician, having worked with orchestras around the United States, and has presented research and clinic sessions at the national conferences for the American String Teachers’ Association (ASTA) and the Suzuki Association of the Americas in addition to several state music education conferences. He currently serves as President-Elect for the Louisiana Chapter of ASTA.

Dr. Saccardi has previously taught at the University of Texas at Austin and at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. In 2016, he was recognized by the Colorado Chapter of the American String Teachers’ Association as the Exemplary Secondary Orchestra Director for the State of Colorado. He holds degrees from the University of Texas at Austin (PhD - Music and Human Learning), the University of Michigan (MME), and Colorado State University (BM - Double Bass & Music Education).