{"id":432,"date":"2012-03-20T00:53:15","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T04:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=432"},"modified":"2012-03-20T00:53:15","modified_gmt":"2012-03-20T04:53:15","slug":"how-orchestras-can-plug-a-hole-in-the-curriculum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2012\/03\/how-orchestras-can-plug-a-hole-in-the-curriculum.html","title":{"rendered":"How Orchestras Can “Plug a Hole in the Curriculum”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMusic Unwound,\u201d the $300,000 NEH initiative funding a consortium of adventurous orchestras, has two basic components. The first is contextualized thematic programming — it supports concerts that explore music from a variety of vantage points, including visual art and literature. The second is linkage — it supports connecting such programming with art museums, schools (grades 3 to 12), colleges, and universities.<\/p>\n

The latest \u201cMusic Unwound\u201d project was \u201cDvorak and America,\u201d presented by the Pacific Symphony Youth Orchestra — a gifted aggregate of 100 high school musicians supervised by Southern California\u2019s exceptional Pacific Symphony (long a national leader in thematic programming and new concert formats). The lead-up to the orchestra\u2019s Dvorak concert included classroom presentations in three high schools and an elementary school. The concert itself comprised a first half — including a visual track<\/a> and the bass-baritone Terry Cook — exploring the Dvorak story and the programmatic resonances of the New World <\/em>Symphony. Part two of the concert was a performance of the symphony itself. The concert was attended by hundreds of students from the participating schools. <\/p>\n

All four schools fall within the Irvine public school district, in which instrumental music is a longstanding high priority, thanks to support from Irvine Company. The high schools I visited all had multiple orchestras. The elementary school had both string and wind ensembles. What \u201cMusic Unwound\u201d brought to these schools was a push toward integrating music education with music history — and also with American history and literature. <\/p>\n

At one of the high schools, I was delighted to discover that my Dvorak presentation was attended by an American History class — whose teacher confided that the topics I addressed comprised \u201ca hole in the curriculum.\u201d These topics included three that I have long believed belong in any overview of the Gilded Age: Dvorak\u2019s New World <\/em>Symphony, Longfellow\u2019s The Song of Hiawatha<\/em>, and the paintings of Frederic Church. It was through this music, this poem, and these paintings that Americans in the late nineteenth century saw and defined themselves. I cannot imagine how anyone could study nineteenth century American history without recourse to such iconic cultural markers. <\/p>\n

The participating music teachers felt empowered by the \u201cMusic Unwound\u201d experience to amplify the impressive instrumental skills of their students with something more. There is a disconnect here that orchestras can help schools to address. In the Irvine, there are already prospective plans to link with the Pacific Symphony\u2019s Rite of Spring<\/em> festival next season. The next \u201cMusic Unwound\u201d Dvorak festival will be presented by the Buffalo Philharmonic in April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cMusic Unwound,\u201d the $300,000 NEH initiative funding a consortium of adventurous orchestras, has two basic components. The first is contextualized thematic programming — it supports concerts that explore music from a variety of vantage points, including visual art and literature. The second is linkage — it supports connecting such programming with art museums, schools (grades […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-6Y","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}