Charles Staley

Conn Selmer Educational Clinician

Chip Staley has over 40 years of experience teaching music and supervising music educators. As a Conn Selmer Clinician, Chip has conducted workshops for hundreds of VIP’s and provided music program evaluations for multiple school districts.

Under Staley's leadership, Neuqua Valley High School was twice recognized by the GRAMMY® Foundation as the National GRAMMY® Signature School and was awarded the 2009 John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts National Schools of Distinction in Arts Education Award.

Currently at the Merit School of Music in Chicago, Illinois, Staley is the Department Chair of Large Instrumental Ensembles, serves on the Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Antiracism (IDEA) leadership team and conducts the Wind Symphony. Staley is the Founder and President of ARTSpeaks, a non-profit arts advocacy organization, supervises student teachers at Roosevelt University, facilitates the “Alive Inside” program for elders living with dementia, is a co-founder of the Birch Creek Wind Ensemble Retreat for adult musicians, and teaches MECA classes at VanderCook College of Music.

Staley holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin – Madison, the University of Illinois – Urbana/Champaign and Doctor Honoris Causa from the VanderCook College of Music. He has been awarded the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra's Music Inspiration Award, the John Paynter Lifetime Achievement Award, the John Philip Sousa Foundation’s Sudler Flag of Honor, the Illinois Music Educators Association Mary Hoffman Excellence in Teaching Award, and the American School Band Directors Association Edwin Franko Goldman Award.