Margaret Selby

About Margaret

Margaret Selby is the orchestra director and 2020-21 Teacher of the Year at Laing Middle School in Charleston, South Carolina where she grew the program from 42 to over 200 students in five years. Selby’s orchestras have participated in SCMEA Concert Performance Assessment and other festivals in the southeast, earning superior ratings.

Selby was the 2022 Featured Clinician for the Orchestra Division of the Texas Music Educators Association (TMEA), is a coauthor of the Habits of a Successful Young String Musician, a beginner method book (GIA), and is a contributing author of Rehearsing the Middle School Orchestra, published by Meredith Music and distributed by GIA.

She has been a guest conductor for Interlochen Arts Camp, All-State Orchestras in Florida and West Virginia, and multiple regional orchestras in Texas and across the Southeast. Selby has presented sessions for the 2022 Midwest Band and Orchestra Clinic, multiple national ASTA conferences, the Texas Orchestra Directors Association, and state music educator conferences in Ohio, New Mexico, Georgia, and South Carolina. She has adjudicated orchestras in Las Vegas and South Carolina, and will be a clinician at the 2024 Ohio State String Teacher Workshop. She served as the President for the SCMEA Orchestra Division and is currently the SCMEA Orchestra Division Region 4 Representative. Selby is the 2017-18 String Educator of the Year awarded by Southern String Supply.

Selby earned degrees in Music Education and Cello Performance from the University of South Carolina, studying under Dr. Robert Jesselson, and has performed with the South Carolina Philharmonic, the Charleston Symphony, and regularly as a freelance cellist. She is also a registered Suzuki cello teacher. Selby lives in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina with her husband and has two great kids. She enjoys running and sampling Charleston’s many amazing restaurants.