Educators honored and challenged at Second Symposium on Music in Schools
The stage is set in Sprague Hall for Symposium panel discussions
Check out the media galleries of the Symposium!
Honoring 51 distinguished public school music educators from 37 states, welcoming an additional 60 music teachers from New Haven, probing critical educational issues, building skills in panels and workshops, and drawing national attention to the value of music and music teachers in the lives of our children, the Yale School of Music’s second biennial Symposium on Music in Schools was a resounding success. Taking place on June 10 and 11, 2009, the Symposium was sponsored by the Yale College Class of 1957 and the Yale School of Music as part of the Music in Schools Initiative.
“The symposium was a wonderful opportunity for the School of Music to contribute to music education in our country and to recognize the wonderful work done by so many music teachers,” said Associate Dean Michael Yaffe, who oversees the School’s Music in Schools Initiative. “It really exceeded my expectations. There was so much high level conversation about the topics, and teachers were really energized about what they were doing. They left feeling that they could go back and conquer the world — which is just what we were hoping they would do.” (more…)
Dan Trahey heads to Venezuela to study El Sistema
Dan Trahey ‘03MM returned to the School of Music this week to present at the Symposium on Music in Schools. Currently the program manager for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s ORCHKids education initiative, as well as a music teacher mentor for the Peabody Conservatory of Music, he joined with Larry Friend and Bob Capanna to talk about El Sistema, Venezuela’s uniquely comprehensive music education system. Capanna, executive director of the Settlement Music School, is a 2008 recipient of a National Medal of Arts and the National Service Award of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts. Friend, the coordinator of visual and performing arts for Baltimore City Public Schools, is currently crafting the district’s Blueprint for Arts Education.
Check back for video reports from the Symposium’s discussion groups, in which music educators from around the country gathered in small groups to examine the topics at hand.
Trahey is on his way to Venezuela to study El Sistema in greater depth. Follow his experiences on his blog.
Music in Schools program featured on Channel 3 WFSB “Cool Schools” segment
Music and Film program featuring Yale composers and performers working with students at John C. Daniels School and Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School
The Music and Film program, part of Yale’s Music in Schools initiative sponsored by the Yale School of Music and the Yale Class of ‘57 Outreach Program, was featured recently on New Haven’s Channel 3 WFSB. The news station’s “Cool Schools” segment visited New Haven’s Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School (CAHHS). In a feature called “CAHHS—’Cool’ for Making Movies,” reporter Mike Hydeck highlights the Music and Film program at the high school, where students developed a screenplay from a mystery story written by students at John C. Daniels Elementary School. The Music and Film program connected all these talented students with musicians from the Yale School of Music, who composed a score for the film and recorded it with the Fred Plaut Recording Studio at YSM. Read more about the Music and Film program here.
Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School (CAHHS) in New Haven was named the “Cool School” for the week of May 29, with segments featuring the arts magnet school’s dance, art, film, jazz, and music programs. (more…)
Lucia Brawley to give keynote address
Lucia Brawley, an actress, writer, and outspoken advocate of arts education, will give the keynote address at Yale’s 2009 Symposium on Music in Schools. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Brawley has also studied at Harvard University and Trinity College (Dublin). She regularly blogs about arts education for the Huffington Post. Her stated mission is to empower students through arts-integrated education.
Lucia Brawley is an actress and arts activist based in Hollywood, California. Ms. Brawley grew up near the World Trade Center and volunteered feeding rescue workers at Ground Zero. She has also volunteered with at-risk youth through theater and organized extensively for the Obama campaign. She played Karen Jimeno in Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center; starred in two films in Hungary, including as the title character in Lora (Best Foreign Film, Philadelphia Independent Film Festival); appeared in numerous television series and a PBS Shakespeare Special with Clare Bloom, in which she played Juliet, Desdemona and Ophelia; and has performed in productions by some of America’s foremost theater artists, including Tony winner Mary Zimmerman; Pulitzer winner Nilo Cruz; Oscar nominee and Obie winner Jose Rivera; and Tina Packer of Shakespeare & Co., among many others. She also helped develop a documentary about 1960’s National Urban League Executive Director, Whitney Young, Jr., with his niece, Emmy-winning broadcast journalist, Bonnie Boswell. (more…)
Music and Film Project with local schools premieres two movies
The Yale School of Music is pleased to announce the June 12 premiere of two films: the live-action The Mystery of John C. Daniels and the animated When the Brothers Unite. Held in Sprague Hall (470 College Street, New Haven), these premieres will be the culmination of the first Music and Film project bringing together students in New Haven public schools with guidance from musicians from the Yale School of Music.
In the Music and Film Project, high school students direct and produce films based on books and music created by younger students in elementary and middle schools. The younger students’ project, the Music and Book Writing Program, began last year, with students from two New Haven middle schools writing their own children’s books. Art teachers guided the students in creating the illustrations, and a Yale School of Music composer then collaborated with them to write music for their story. This hugely successful program culminated in a spectacular performance at each school. A narrator read the book on stage with the illustrations projected overhead and a Yale School of Music ensemble performing the music. (more…)
Yale/New Haven Young Artist Solo Competition
Winners of the 2008 Competition
The Yale School of Music is pleased to announce the second annual Yale/New Haven Young Artists Solo Competition. The competition will be held on Saturday, May 9th, 2009, beginning at 11:00 am, at Yale University’s Sprague Memorial Hall (470 College Street, New Haven). Each New Haven K-8 school may choose up to three students to compete. The competition is open to students in fourth through eighth grades who play percussion (not piano), strings, woodwinds, and brass. (more…)
Yale harmonizes music and literacy in local schools
Nora Wessel
Yale Daily News
It is Tuesday morning at John C. Daniels Magnet School. Class is in session and the building is quiet, save for faint music echoing down the sunshine-flooded halls.
Inside the music auditorium, more than a dozen sixth-grade students perch in front of music stands, flutes, clarinets and trumpets in hand. Some play Brahams, others Christmas carols.
Music classes like this one are increasingly rare in American classrooms, as budget cuts continue to threaten the scope of public-school curricula. But here in the Elm City — in a school district plagued by limited funds and a shortage of teachers — a town-gown partnership has made music a priority. (more…)
Share the Music comes to city schools
(originally published in the Yale Daily News)
When Austin Kase ’11 was a high school student in New Jersey, he noticed the dearth of musical instruments at public schools. To fill the void, he launched Share the Music, a program that accepts donated instruments and places them in music classrooms.
Recently, Share the Music became an official undergraduate organization, collaborating with other Yale groups, such as the Class of ’57 Music Education Project, to reinvigorate the halls of New Haven schools with the sound of music. And after receiving a $600 Sudler Grant from the Office of Masters, the group set out to make a documentary that tells the story from the group’s inception and includes interviews of teachers, students and donors in the program. The theme, members interviewed said, is to express why music education is important.
“Music education is so vital,” Naomi Woo ’12, one of the students spearheading Yale’s involvement with Kase, said. “Whenever I’m stressed, I play the piano. Whenever I have a lot of emotion, I play the piano. It’s a really great feeling and it’s a really great thing to be able to do.” (more…)
Music program hits high notes
By Elizabeth Benton
New Haven Register
NEW HAVEN — Two weeks ago, fifth-grader Serena Santiago secured a coveted spot in the John C. Daniels School band.
With interest high and instruments limited, Santiago told band director John Miller she’d be dedicated to whatever he had for her.
The pitch worked. He handed her a trombone.
Serena now walks to school 45 minutes early and stays after for 90 minutes each day to practice, said her mother, Wendy Santiago. Then Serena practices again at home. (more…)
Yale announces 2009 Symposium on Music in Schools
Teachers gather in the lobby of Sprague Hall for the 2007 Symposium on Music in Schools
The Yale School of Music is pleased to announce the second biannual Symposium on Music in Schools for June 10-11, 2009. Sponsored by the Yale College Class of 1957 and the Yale School of Music, the Symposium is part of the Music in Schools project, initiated by the Class of ’57 in honor of their 50th reunion in 2007.
Once again, the Symposium will bring together approximately fifty teachers from around the country who are selected for their outstanding accomplishments in teaching music in public schools. This year’s Distinguished Music Educators will convene in New Haven to discuss vital issues in music education and participate in skill-building workshops. (more…)
alumniVentures to “advance the cause of music”
Yale School of Music supports alumni projects with grants totaling $100,000
In June, 2008, Dean Robert Blocker of the Yale School of Music announced alumniVentures, a bold and innovative program that will provide $100,000 in grants to the School’s alumni. In the first year of what Dean Blocker promised to be an annual program, alumniVentures grants would be given to projects that best followed one simple but transcendent criterion: to advance the cause of music. Three hundred proposals from 329 alumni (there were several joint proposals) were submitted, including commissions, travel to support teaching and scholarship, recital performances, recording projects, and outreach. The number of responses was remarkable, considering that the Yale School of Music, a small graduate professional school, has just over three thousand alumni. On November 10, the grants were announced. (more…)
