U of Ideas of General Interest -- July 2000
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Melissa Mitchell, Arts Editor, (217) 333-5491; [email protected]
ARTS IN THE COMMUNITY
Orchestra's education program aimed at attracting future audiences
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- When it comes to music appreciation, Mr. and Mrs. Average Babyboomer are more likely to be singing along with tunes on the oldies radio station than checking out a new orchestration of a Chopin piano concerto by the local symphony orchestra.
And that's not exactly music to the ears of the nation's professional musicians and orchestra administrators. To halt the decline in ticket sales, many metropolitan orchestras in recent years have been exploring new strategies for reaching out to their communities. Their primary goals in doing so, according to University of Illinois music professor Gregory DeNardo, have been to counter public perceptions that orchestral music is elitist, and ultimately, to attract new audiences. Few among these efforts have been as ambitious or as well-regarded as the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra's Arts in Community Education program. The program just received a third major grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and it is frequently cited by NEA Chairman Bill Ivey.
Since ACE's inception a decade ago, the UI's DeNardo has played a critical role in assessing and guiding the program, developed by the MSO to enhance learning through the integration of music and the arts into the school curriculum in Milwaukee's elementary schools. Initially, the program was introduced in K-5 classrooms in 10 schools. Today, it has been expanded to serve more than 8,000 K-8 schoolchildren in 23 public and private schools in eight Milwaukee school districts.
DeNardo said ACE goes beyond the traditional type of outreach program, which brings musicians and other artists into the school to perform. In K-5 ACE classrooms, culturally diverse arts experiences are structured around a coordinating theme for each grade. For example, kindergarteners focus on the "family of music" theme, learning that the musical family comprises a composer, conductor, performers and audience. Artists reinforce the theme during classroom performances and demonstrations, and students also collaborate on an interdisciplinary project.
The research component is what sets the ACE program apart most from similar efforts elsewhere to incorporate hands-on arts experiences into the core curricula, DeNardo said.
"From the start, the MSO didn't want to have a program without accountability. And what we've learned from the research has influenced the overall project development. It's a great way to put research into practice."
DeNardo is just beginning the annual evaluation process for the 1999-2000 school year. Among last year's conclusions, he noted trends that point to benefits for ACE students and teachers.
"Long-term involvement in ACE seems to influence students' ability to collaborate with their peers," DeNardo concluded. "This may be because they are secure in their knowledge and able to respect others' values and viewpoints. Similarly, long-term involvement in ACE fosters in teachers a more fully developed awareness of potential conceptual connections among disciplines."
-mm-
RSS