Cathy LaFromboisMusic Educator · Conductor · Writer

Music education · Appleton, Wisconsin

Music education doesn’t have to end at the schoolhouse door.

I’m Cathy LaFrombois, a music educator, conductor, and founder exploring what community-based and homeschool music programs can teach us about access, belonging, rigor, and the future of music education.

I have taught bands and choirs for more than thirty years, first in K–12 schools and since 2013 in a program I built for homeschooled students in Appleton, Wisconsin. It now serves nearly 800 students.

Read my writing About me
Cathy LaFrombois conducting, smiling, hands raised Cathy leading a choir rehearsal, singers standing in a wide circle A choir in concert on a lit stage, Cathy conducting

The question underneath my work

What can music education outside the conventional school system teach the larger profession about access, rigor, community, belonging, and the future of ensemble music-making?

Latest writing

A homeschool choir performing on stage

Published October 20, 2026 · NAfME

What Homeschool Families Are Teaching Us about Community Music Education

Homeschool families are increasingly networked, and music and theater have become natural gathering points, because you cannot form a band alone. Many of these families want sequential instruction, high expectations, and teachers who take their children seriously as musicians. This essay argues that they are a substantial population our profession is well equipped to serve.

NAfME blog, National Association for Music Education

Read the essay on NAfME

Current work

What I am working on now

Organization · Executive Director

National Association of Homeschool Music Educators

NAHME helps homeschool families find bands, choirs, and orchestras near them through a national registry, and supports the directors who start and grow those programs.

Visit nahme.org

Speaking · Proposal pending

Expanding the Reach of Music Education: The Valley Troubadours

A session proposed for the 2027 Wisconsin State Music Conference. The proposal is under review and has not been accepted.

About the proposal

Research · In planning

2026–27 Valley Troubadours Family Survey

What do homeschool families seek from organized music education, and what do they perceive their children gain from participating? An emerging project, not yet begun.

Questions I am exploring

Study: Master of Music Education, Boston University. Graduate study focused on music education in alternative learning environments. Expected 2027.

Three threads

Where my attention goes

  1. Community and alternative music education

    Families who leave the conventional school system rarely leave music behind. They look for it, and when they cannot find it, they build it. I am interested in what those community-based ensemble models look like and what they require to be both serious and sustainable.

  2. Music, belonging, and human development

    An ensemble is one of the few places where a young person’s contribution is both individual and plainly necessary to everyone else. I want to understand how that builds belonging and identity, for adolescents especially, and for students who do not easily find a place elsewhere.

  3. The teacher as builder

    Most music educators inherit a program. Some have to build one. Growing Valley Troubadours from a borrowed room into a large educational organization taught me things about standards, staffing, facilities, and growth that may be useful to anyone starting something new.

We did not create the demand. We simply built a place for it to land.
From “What Homeschool Families Are Teaching Us about Community Music Education”
A large homeschool choir in concert before a full audience
Portrait of Cathy LaFrombois

I came to this work as an oboist and conductor trained at DePaul, as a public school band and choir director, and as a homeschooling parent. Those vantage points rarely meet, and much of what I write about happens where they do.

Read the full biography

Conversations are welcome

Speaking, writing, research collaboration, or starting a homeschool or community music program in your area.

Get in touch