Beyond lip service
I've been trying to catch up on my reading - it's no small task to get through a dozen blog sites and peruse the arts sections of major papers, and I've gotten a little lax in my weeks off! Here's an article from May about a new educational initiative in Baltimore.
Venezuela's El Sistema has been the talk of the music world for the last few years, spurred on by Gustavo Dudamel's appointment to the music directorship of the LA Philharmonic last spring and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's triumphant North American tour last fall; the pursuant national conversation surrounding the possibility of adapting the El Sistema "system" in the US has been endlessly fascinating.
"Music education is important" has been one of those sound bites that we as conductors continually drag out whenever we are asked about the place of classical/orchestral music in contemporary culture. Yes, studies have shown that kids in music tend to have better test scores, etc etc etc. But I so often feel like that it is only so much lip service; we in the orchestra business sometimes seem more bent on using the "music education" umbrella in creating a new generation of music consumers more than anything else ("audience cultivation" from a young age, as it were). And I can't tell you how many times I've heard a conductor talk about the significance of some educational initiative while in the meantime they themselves haven't conducted a children's concert or participated in an outreach event for years.
The difference with El Sistema, and now OrchKids in Balitmore, is the notion that music education is not just a tool for test-score improvement, or an added bonus for the most privileged of kids, but that it can be, in itself, a catalyst for social change. Which is a tremendous assertion, if you think about it. By taking some of the least privileged children in the country, systematically teaching them an instrument, providing them a safe haven after school, giving them a strong sense of community and self-worth and imparting the discipline and passion that help one succeed at anything in life, El Sistema has employed a "bottom-up" approach to music education. And in the process, it has provided a stabilizing force in the lives of its students, their families, and their communities at large.
It may all sound a bit idealistic, but it's not so far-fetched (after all, it's already been done in Venezuela!), and I was thrilled to see an El Sistema-inspired program get off the ground. What was even more thrilling was to see how it happened. Marin Alsop, the Baltimore Symphony's music director, received a MacArthur "Genius" Grant in 2005, to the tune of $500,000. To get OrchKids off the ground, Alsop donated the last $100,000 installment (as a 4-1 challenge grant). Which is a tremendous show of commitment to the possibilities of change, and a refreshing display of putting your money where your mouth is; Alsop is clearly paying more than lip service.
Venezuela's El Sistema has been the talk of the music world for the last few years, spurred on by Gustavo Dudamel's appointment to the music directorship of the LA Philharmonic last spring and the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra's triumphant North American tour last fall; the pursuant national conversation surrounding the possibility of adapting the El Sistema "system" in the US has been endlessly fascinating.
"Music education is important" has been one of those sound bites that we as conductors continually drag out whenever we are asked about the place of classical/orchestral music in contemporary culture. Yes, studies have shown that kids in music tend to have better test scores, etc etc etc. But I so often feel like that it is only so much lip service; we in the orchestra business sometimes seem more bent on using the "music education" umbrella in creating a new generation of music consumers more than anything else ("audience cultivation" from a young age, as it were). And I can't tell you how many times I've heard a conductor talk about the significance of some educational initiative while in the meantime they themselves haven't conducted a children's concert or participated in an outreach event for years.
The difference with El Sistema, and now OrchKids in Balitmore, is the notion that music education is not just a tool for test-score improvement, or an added bonus for the most privileged of kids, but that it can be, in itself, a catalyst for social change. Which is a tremendous assertion, if you think about it. By taking some of the least privileged children in the country, systematically teaching them an instrument, providing them a safe haven after school, giving them a strong sense of community and self-worth and imparting the discipline and passion that help one succeed at anything in life, El Sistema has employed a "bottom-up" approach to music education. And in the process, it has provided a stabilizing force in the lives of its students, their families, and their communities at large.
It may all sound a bit idealistic, but it's not so far-fetched (after all, it's already been done in Venezuela!), and I was thrilled to see an El Sistema-inspired program get off the ground. What was even more thrilling was to see how it happened. Marin Alsop, the Baltimore Symphony's music director, received a MacArthur "Genius" Grant in 2005, to the tune of $500,000. To get OrchKids off the ground, Alsop donated the last $100,000 installment (as a 4-1 challenge grant). Which is a tremendous show of commitment to the possibilities of change, and a refreshing display of putting your money where your mouth is; Alsop is clearly paying more than lip service.
Labels: conductors and conducting, music education
posted by Sarah at
9:59 PM
6 Comments:
I don't understand why music educators in the US don't band together and take their business to the community in private ventures. With our technological infrastructure and our entrepreneurial spirit, we can do far more good for the profession and for music enthusiasts if we make quality music education available to everyone in a community - not just 6th through 12 graders.
We are constantly shilling for funding to save our programs; but if we put as much effort into forming private enterprises in music education, we would be able to help more people and save our profession from extinction. I certainly would not want to count on a government program to bail us out of an already mired system.
By private venture I take it you mean for-profit, right "musicked"? I don't think the OrchKids program has anything to do with the $180 software programs and expensive lessons you are advertising on your website. That's all fine, but that's not going to do anything for the kids they are targeting in Baltimore or anywhere else for that matter. I hadn't realized that this profession needed saving from extinction, but it surely would if we went that direction.
Without assuming that MusickEd meant exclusively for-profit private ventures, it's also worth pointing out that most major American cities have numerous private musical organizations serving the wider community. They're generally non-profit groups, of course, but that doesn't mean the people working for them are volunteers - they're paid employees, and their salaries are paid through a combination of donations, participant fees, and public and private grants.
There are too many of these to name, but since I'm in the Northeast at the moment, one that springs immediately to mind is Community MusicWorks in Providence, RI, which does tremendous work in the inner city, providing lessons, chamber music experience, and a sense of community spirit to a wide swath of disadvantaged kids...
Perhaps I shouldn't jump to conclusions. However, I've had to give up caffeine, and 3 solid weeks without my daily dose of pitch-black coffee is making me very irritable.
spartacus, my sympathies, i'm trying to cut down my 4-cup-a-day coffee habit to 1, and i am alternately comatose and cranky. not fun at all.
Sarah, I'm quite sure that was you I saw at the 9th and Nicollet Starbucks early last Sunday afternoon. I was ordering decaf coffee...it's really very sad.
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