TMEA

Texas Music Educators Association

Abbreviation	TMEA
Motto	promoting music excellence in music education
Formation	1920
Type	Volunteer; NPO
Legal status	Association
Purpose	Educational and Fine Arts
Headquarters	7900 Centre Park Dr. Austin, TX 78754
Region served	Texas Jurisdiction
Official language	English
Executive Director	Robert Floyd
Affiliations	University Interscholastic League Association of Texas Small School Bands
Website	tmea.org
Remarks	(888) 318-8632

The Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA) is an organization of over 12,000 Texas school music educators. Its stated goals are to provide professional growth opportunities, to encourage interaction among music education professionals, to foster public support for music in schools, to offer quality musical experiences for students, to cultivate universal appreciation and lifetime involvement in music, and to develop and maintain productive working relationships with other professional organizations.

TMEA was founded in 1920 by James E. King(1885-1947) and originally called the Texas Band Teachers Association.

Once an affiliate of MENC: The National Association for Music Education, TMEA was expelled as the state affiliate largely due to policy disputes over compulsory MENC membership in 1975. Essentially, at the time of federated status, TMEA members had the option to join TMEA without paying dues to MENC. MENC found this arrangement untenable and urged TMEA to revise its constitution to require all TMEA members to pay full MENC dues and affiliate with MENC. This question was repeatedly put before TMEA membership who rejected it in ballot after ballot. MENC officially expelled TMEA, what would have been and would remain today its largest affiliated organization, on June 30, 1975. TMEA assisted MENC in the creation of the "Texas Music Educators Conference," to be a Texas MENC affiliate. Prior to the expulsion, over 1000 TMEA members voluntarily maintained MENC membership, however in its first report to MENC, the newly formed TMEC claimed only 99 members statewide.

Issues regarding the dominance of TMEA by the state's larger schools (those in UIL Classes AAAA and AAAAA) led to the 1991 formation of the Association of Texas Small School Bands (ATSSB), membership in which is limited to schools in UIL Classes A, AA, and AAA. However, TMEA and ATSSB (along with other organizations, such as the Texas Bandmasters Association, which also split from TMEA in the 1940s) work together to promote music education in Texas.

TMEA is responsible for auditions into and concerts of Texas's All-Region and All-State bands, orchestras and choirs. It aligns schools into the 28 regions which are used by the University Interscholastic League (UIL) and the Association of Texas Small School Bands (ATSSB) for their competitions.The audition music is announced at the yearly Texas Bandmasters Association (TBA) convention in San Antonio, usually in July.