Music Notes

Committed to enriching the lives of underserved schoolchildren, the American Symphony Orchestra’s arts education program, Music Notes, is designed to fully integrate symphonic music into the arts & humanities curriculum, and lay the groundwork for an interest in playing and creating music—as well as listening to it and understanding it.

Music Notes has been developed in tandem with the Orchestra's unique “thematic approach” to symphonic music programming, where concerts are curated around an extra-musical idea such as those from history, literature, visual arts, religion, or politics. In this manner, works are placed within a context that illustrates how they came to be written, offering multiple ways for teachers to foster learning through symphonic music on a variety of topics.

Communities Reached

Music Notes serves nine area high schools, reaching 90 teachers and over 4,000 students annually. This past year the program’s constituency has grown by 60%.

Currently, the Orchestra collaborates with five high schools in New Jersey and four high schools in New York.

Many of the students served by this program are from low-income families with diverse racial and cultural backgrounds; for most of these students, their entire exposure to symphonic music is fulfilled through American Symphony Orchestra concerts and interaction with the Orchestra's musicians.

Program Highlights and Components

Professional development workshops for teachers: Teachers as Scholars
Several times each year, humanities and visual arts teachers from each of our partner schools come together for workshops coordinated by ASO education staff. With guidance from a visiting scholar, teachers explore in detail the historical context of each work on an upcoming ASO program. Teachers work closely with ASO musicians and education staff to create lesson plans integrating symphonic music and thematic concert content into their already established arts & humanities curriculum. Most of the teachers in our workshops have had little or no prior experience with symphonic music. We help them gain comfort in this area, so that they may in turn pass that knowledge and enthusiasm along to their students

Curriculum Link-Up
Curriculum units are formed around the Orchestra's thematic concert series at Lincoln Center. For example, a recent concert, “The Gathering Storm”—a program of works written by British composers in the 1930s—was introduced to high school students in the context of their World History lessons on the build-up to Britain’s involvement in WWII. Students listened to the Fourth Symphony of Vaughan Williams, and were guided by their teachers through discussions of what life in London must have been like in the 1930s, how the composer’s own experiences with WWI might have affected his artistic output later in life, and how the audience attending the 1935 premiere might have interpreted this powerful piece of music given the imminent outbreak of war.

In-School Musicians’ Workshops
To support classroom work, students are treated to in-school workshops by ASO Assistant Conductor Teresa Cheung, accompanied by ASO musicians. With live musical examples, Ms. Cheung emphasizes the uniqueness of the art form—how so much can be expressed emotionally, even without the aid of words or pictures. She provides students with details of the composers’ lives, discusses the historical and cultural context of ASO’s thematic programs, and points out things to listen for through musical demonstrations. Time is allotted for an informal question and answer session between students and ASO musicians, providing students with a much better understanding of the details before they actually attend an ASO concert at Lincoln Center.

Concert Attendance
Students and teachers are invited to American Symphony Orchestra concerts at Lincoln Center, as well as special events at partnering cultural organizations. As a special treat, student artwork related to the concert themes is displayed in the Avery Fisher Hall promenade during ASO concerts.
 

Side-by-Side concerts: A unique experience for both students and professional musicians!
ASO musicians make frequent visits to partner schools, providing instrument instruction and mentoring, the culmination of which is a Side-by-Side concert where ASO musicians perform onstage alongside student ensembles, all under the direction of Teresa Cheung, ASO Assistant Conductor. This process complements Music Notes work in the classroom and provides students with first-hand experience performing symphonic music beside professional musicians. These events are extremely well attended, and are free and open to the schools’ constituencies; they represent a community event of which teachers, students, and parents can be extremely proud.

Funding

The American Symphony Orchestra’s education programs are funded, in part, through the generous support of the New York State Council on the Arts, the JPMorgan Chase Foundation, the Bay and Paul Foundations, and members of the Stokowski Circle. For more information on how you can support these critical programs, please contact Amanda Gentile, Development Manager, at (212) 868-9276, ext. 11.

For more information on the Orchestra’s education programs, please contact Dennis Conroy, General Manager, at (212) 868-9276 ext. 20