I’ll call her Emily. A junior at Pine Ridge High School, on the Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation, Emily came into the Composition Academy with dark glasses on and hood up, silent except to say that she was not a creative person. She participated in group warm-ups and games only grudgingly. And yet she would sit at the piano before each day’s workshops, playing Chopin and Beethoven by ear – note-perfect melodies and accompaniments almost exactly as written. She only ever had two piano lessons. The instrument came to her naturally, and she was clearly a close listener.
Read more →Since I left the New York Philharmonic in February, I’ve done projects with several other orchestras that have got me thinking about the place of orchestral concerts for school audiences. The model has been around for so long that it’s tempting to question whether they are still relevant, useful, and affordable. Schools have increasing trouble with buses, let alone field trips in the era of high-stakes testing. I created and performed dozens of them at the Philharmonic, but have we simply been on auto-pilot? Surely we have evolved more impactful and practical ways of engaging kids in music in the 40-odd years of professional education staffs at orchestras.
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