Clint Randles
Professor of Music Education, Co-Director of Contemporary Commercial Music
Email: randlesc@usf.edu
Phone: (616) 481-8949
Clint Randles is Professor of Music Education, Co-Director of Contemporary Commercial Music at the University of South Florida School of Music. Dr. Randles is both an award-winning composer/songwriter and recipient of the 2015 Michael L. Mark Music Research Award for outstanding research by an early career scholar/researcher, issued by the University of Michigan. Randles teaches “Creative Performance Chamber Ensemble” for music education majors and directs the “Holly Drive Collective” for CCM students at the undergraduate level, and “Creativity Conceptions” and “Directed Research” at the graduate level for students in the College of Design, Art & Performance since 2010. He also teaches classes for students with disabilities in a community music outreach sponsored by Arts4All Florida. He is the Chair of the Popular Music SRIG for the National Association for Music Education and the Contemporary Media Committee for the Florida Music Educators Association.
His research interests include reconceptualizing music teachers as music producers and providing music teachers with ways of applying recording arts and songwriting to manifestations of multiple creativities in the music classroom. He is the author of Growing Songwriting (2024, Oxford University Press), Music Teacher as Music Producer: How to Turn Your Classroom into a Center for Musical Creativities (2022, Oxford University Press) and To Create: Imagining the Good Life Through Music (2020, GIA Publications: Chicago, IL). Sound Production for the Emerging Teacher Producer (2024, Oxford University Press) and the Oxford Handbook of AI in Music Education are forthcoming. Randles has presented papers at state, national, and international conferences in the US, Canada, Brazil, Egypt, England, Ireland, Finland, China, Australia, and New Zealand. He has articles (28) published in many of the top journals in music education. Randles has published 24 book chapters in numerous handbooks for Oxford, Routledge, CMEA, GIA, R&L Education and others. He has four co-edited books: Milestones in Music Education (2024, Routledge), The Routledge Companion to Understanding Creativities in Music Education (2022, Routledge), Musicianship: Composing in Band and Orchestra (2013, GIA Publications), and Music Education: Navigating the Future (2014, Routledge). Randles has formed two book series, Musicianship with GIA Publishing (Chicago) and the New Directions in Music Education series with Routledge (New York) to assist the music profession in realizing expanded curricular possibilities on a large scale. In addition to academic journals, Randles' work can be read in The Chicago Tribune, SFGate, Channel NewsAsia, The Wire, Huffington Post, and The Conversation.
Prior to his appointment at USF, Dr. Randles taught general music and band in the public schools of Michigan for nine years. He has written arrangements and original compositions that have been performed by both marching bands and children’s choruses.
Dr. Randles’ professional musical pursuits include singing and playing guitar, mandolin, accordion, and Maschine in his role as Director of Contemporary Worship at Lutz Community Church. He has recently composed music for Dion Boucicualt’s “The Vampire” that is currently being workshopped in the UK for performance there and in NYC in 2025. His music can be found on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, and Amazon Music. He frequently is asked to compose music for animation and film in and around the Tampa Bay region.
A Michigan native, Randles received his Bachelor of Music Education degree from Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Michigan, and both his Master of Music and Doctor of Philosophy in Music Education degrees from Michigan State University.