Gail Anderson Needleman (February 11, 1949 - March 2, 2022) helped to change the face of music education through her teaching, research, and creation of the online American Folk Song Collection and the undergraduate music “Great Works curriculum.”

The curriculum integrates solfège, theory, stylistic analysis and cultural context, subjects that are often taught separately, by different instructors. She quickly became a valued resource for music teachers throughout the country and was frequently consulted regarding musicianship studies, choral repertoire and folk song arrangements.

Gail was conversant in several languages, and was the English language editor for the anthology An Ode for Music, published in 2002 by the International Kodály Society on the 120th anniversary of Kodály’s birth. She also translated many of Hungarian composer Lajos Bárdos’s choral works for Edition Musica Budapest.

She was recently featured in a National Kodály conference session video "Building Bridges through Listening: Primary Sources in the Music Classroom".