Technology Expansion with WHYY & Minas

Gift of Music: Working in collaboration with the Philadelphia Orchestra, CRW Graphics, PNC Bank, Comcast, Jacobs Music Company, Medley Music, WRTI, WJJZ, School District of Philadelphia, Settlement Music School, Mann Music Center, and several other organizations, Strings for Schools (SfS) has been spearheading instrument donations drives for students who cannot afford to rent or buy them. The Gift of Music is a statewide initiative that originated from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and is active in four other cities in Pennsylvania. SfS coordinates the Gift of Music for the Philadelphia region and to date has collected over 200 instruments for schools in need. The Gift of Music is an organizational initiative that has been identified as a continuing and integral part of our growing presence over the next four years and as a critical issue below. In October 2005, the drive will be extended into Burlington County, New Jersey, through a partnership with the Moorestown Mall and Simon PR.

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Gabriel’s Music: Gabriel’s Music is one of the most exciting and promising initiatives that SfS has developed in our more than three decades of in-school and community music education programs. Originally the dream of visionary philanthropist Hilary Green, Gabriel’s Music draws its inspiration from a system of youth orchestras that have transformed the lives of youngsters from impoverished, crime-ridden areas of Venezuela. As shown on a CBS 60 Minutes segment, these youth orchestras have had a profound impact on the poorest communities in Venezuela; some participants have actually become professional musicians and many have emerged as highly productive adults in society. Working closely with Ms. Green and the School District of Philadelphia, SfS has designed a similar, broad-based music program in the economically stressed area of South Philadelphia for students who lack cultural opportunities and constructive outlets, with an after-school youth orchestra as the project’s linchpin. This first Gabriel’s Music Youth Orchestra will begin in October 2005 and will be composed of public, private, and charter students from widely diverse cultural backgrounds, and is supported by both in-school and after-school music instruction. The project integrates many components of arts learning and community building to serve a single, highly stressed Philadelphia neighborhood and has received strong financial and institutional backing from the School District of Philadelphia, the Samuel S. Fels Fund, and he Patricia Kind Family Foundation.

Please click here for more information on Gabriel's Music

Immersion in Latino Music and Culture: This very exciting and challenging project taps into the Central Northeast Philadelphia’s Latino culture; builds a novel, arts-infused curriculum in these schools; and cultivates a sense of pride and belonging through community-wide events in this highly challenged neighborhood. This three-year project is supported by the James S. and John L. Knight Foundation and complements the strategic plan of the Office of Creative and Performing Arts (OCPA) of the School District of Philadelphia (SDP), under the aegis of Dr. Dennis Creedon, Cultural Administrator of OCPA, and Paul Vallas, CEO of the SDP. Marlon Simon, SfS teaching artist and award-winning Latin percussionist, is the artistic coordinator of the project that began with Strings for Schools musical residencies in six designated schools in January 2005. Through the chosen core musical genre, Afro-Caribbean, students are exploring the history and development of Latin music in America. Related musical cultures—African Percussion, Middle Eastern and Brazilian—will be added in subsequent years. The targeted schools are serving as the initial recruiting ground for a district-wide, after-school Latin Jazz Band that will serve as a cultural bridge to schools in surrounding areas. Strings for Schools is also partnering with the neighborhood’s Asociación de Músicos Latino Americanos (AMLA) by providing a yearly concert in AMLA’s Cultural Treasures series and a paid internship to an advanced AMLA music student to work with Marlon Simon in the schools as part of AMLA’s Artist-in-Training program. The end goal of this three-year project is the formation of a district-wide Latin Jazz Band.

Exploring Ourselves & Our Cultures: In a second Knight Foundation funded, three-year project in North Philadelphia, Strings for Schools is partnering with The Clay Studio and Philadelphia Young Playwrights in designing a comprehensive arts program in six North Philadelphia schools. Through music, theater, and ceramic art, students and families in the Temple University area will take part in a multi-disciplinary exploration of self in relation to neighborhood and cultures beyond. Culminating events will take place yearly, and the collaboration with Clay Studio and Philadelphia Young Playwrights was cited recently by the TCC Group (which is coordinating this and other Knight grants), as a model for an effective partnership.

The partnership goals in these multi-year projects, Immersion in Latino Music and Exploring Ourselves & Our Cultures, include: bringing together two communities that are normally separated by racial and cultural differences through inter-community events; assisting the School District of Philadelphia with the formation of a district-wide Latin Jazz Band; and increasing the cultural opportunities and development for families and students in this area.

City of Chester “Immersion in Great Music and World Cultures”: Strings for Schools began giving individual assemblies for the schools in the Chester-Upland School District five years ago. At that time, Chester schools had the lowest academic performance record in the state, and, the second highest crime rate as well. Music had been eliminated from all but one of the schools. Recognizing the crisis in education in this city, the state took over control of these schools in 2001. When SfS’ residencies were developed in 2003, Chester was our first test area of this community-building model, which we envisioned would use music to reach out to adult populations in support of better music education for their children. In May 2003, four Strings for Schools ensembles gave a final culminating evening concert that brought together students from nine schools in performance with the SfS professionals. The attendance was dismal, but the superintendent and school principals who attended pledged their support for another try in 2004. With full support from the Chester-Upland School District, in May 2004 and May 2005, over 400 students, families, and community leaders attended Strings for Schools final community concerts at Widener University, with approximately 200 students performing with five different SfS ensembles each year. Many community members thought that these events drew the largest turnout of Chester residents in recent history. This is not only a matter of rebuilding music education in these schools, but an attempt to rebuild the self-esteem of students and the quality of life of the entire community. Strings for Schools is committed to working in Chester with the goal of creating a Chester High School Marching Band that will match or exceed the quality of music that once existed in this area – something everyone in Chester will be able to point to proudly once again.

Temple University Partnership Schools’ Bridge to Music: Building a Bridge to Music has evolved through a grant from the Bronstein Foundation to expand the in-school and after-school music opportunities to the four Temple University Partnership Schools already participating in Exploring Ourselves & Our Cultures, mentioned above. The pilot project is strongly supported by the School District of Philadelphia and will begin in George Meade Elementary School in 2005-06, expanding to neighborhood schools in subsequent years. George Meade Elementary School has the second lowest income ratio in the city, but feels like “home away from home” for many students, and is led by dynamic and visionary principal, Frank Murphy, who believes that music has the power to change the face of this school and its community. Temple University and Meade School have committed to hiring a full-time music teacher to lay the foundation for an after-school program that will provide a more in-depth music program via small-group instrumental instruction for the participating students. The project includes the formation of three in-school performing groups: winds, strings and percussion ensembles (none of which currently exist), instruments donated through the Gift of Music, Temple music student volunteers, and residency programs with SfS musicians.

Technology Expansion with WHYY & Minas: Strings for Schools and Minas are piloting a new initiative in partnership with WHYY to utilize technology in order to enhance Minas’ assembly and residency programs, and to broaden and diversify their audience. Minas, a well sought after Brazilian group throughout the U.S. and Brazil, is an ensemble that focuses on teaching students about Brazilian culture. They will use video clips of Brazilian musicians, dancers, landscape, and The Brazilian Carnival during in-school programs, which will give the students a greater sense of Brazilian culture. In addition to this, lesson plans for music and dance instruction will be presented on both a DVD and the internet, which will be made available to classroom teachers. WHYY is providing the technological assistance as well as studio space for recording.