{"id":100,"date":"2011-04-18T18:52:14","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T23:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/?p=100"},"modified":"2011-04-18T18:59:46","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T23:59:46","slug":"celebrate-rigor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/2011\/04\/celebrate-rigor\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrate rigor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>At the Salzburg Global Seminar <\/a>I wrote about in my most recent post we were fortunate to have a number of leading music educators from around the world as participants.\u00c2\u00a0 Among them was Duffie Adelson, President of Chicago’s Merit School of Music<\/a>,\u00c2\u00a0who spoke to us about that impressive school’s philosophy and results.\u00c2\u00a0 In her talk she hit a nerve with me by saying that we\u00c2\u00a0in the arts\u00c2\u00a0need to “celebrate rigor” and that “being held to a high standard is the highest possible compliment” you can pay someone.\u00c2\u00a0 Merit’s mission statement is overt with respect to the results expected from\u00c2\u00a0musical training in a nurturing and rigorous environment: “to provide life-changing experiences for children through music.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0More than 6,000 children from 140 Chicago-area zip codes are enrolled in Merit’s programs, which purposefully reach out to diverse communities and strive to remove economic, geographic, and other\u00c2\u00a0barriers to participation (programs are offered in more than 50 locations as well as the school’s flagship building in downtown Chicago).<\/p>\n

Merit’s philosophy is that talent and interest in music is equally distributed in every neighborhood, city, and country, but what is not equally distributed is “exposure to the beauty and power of music, and access to training.”\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Merit has created a pathway that leads from non-student to “musician and enlightened citizen.” The path starts with exposure to music, then to inspiration and motivation to learn music, then to access to training and a nurturing community of teachers and learners, and then to the embrace of rigor as an essential component of musical training.\u00c2\u00a0Through insistence on rigor and the\u00c2\u00a0pursuit of musical excellence,\u00c2\u00a0Adelson states\u00c2\u00a0that “a force of tremendous and life-altering, transformative intensity results when rigor is married with access to musical works of deep intrinsic value.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the most joyful and effective way to help shape our youth and civilize our world.”<\/p>\n

Adelson’s insistence that rigor is a central, key component in musical training is worth considering deeply.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Much of the arts education in our society stops at exposure to music or at best at encouraging participation.\u00c2\u00a0 How many\u00c2\u00a0schools and programs go further to\u00c2\u00a0celebrate and embrace rigor,\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0insist on\u00c2\u00a0the highest standards?\u00c2\u00a0 I think it may be fewer than we are willing to admit.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet in accepting a “showing up is enough” standard for our youth do we not fail them? Do we not believe that the pursuit of excellence is a route to understanding the meaning and power of art?<\/p>\n

Discussions of relative merit, of what makes something great as opposed to good enough, are surprisingly uncomfortable for many in the arts.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0This is especially difficult when instead of comparing gradations of goodness, we have to confess that something is actually weak or\u00c2\u00a0downright bad.\u00c2\u00a0 By “bad” I mean without structure, intellectually shallow, not well performed or executed, devoid of emotional commitment, all those things that together can make the difference between a deep artistic experience and no artistic experience.<\/p>\n

In craving the artistic experience and in promoting its soulful benefits, let’s not forget that rigor is essential.\u00c2\u00a0 Standards matter.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Excellence exists, and doesn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 We call our artistic pursuits “disciplines” for a reason.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Celebrate rigor!\u00c2\u00a0 And thank you, Merit School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the Salzburg Global Seminar I wrote about in my most recent post we were fortunate to have a number of leading music educators from around the world as participants.\u00c2\u00a0 Among them was Duffie Adelson, President of Chicago’s Merit School of Music,\u00c2\u00a0who spoke to us about that impressive school’s philosophy and results.\u00c2\u00a0 In her talk […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-100","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}