orchkids program engages our school communities

orchpress
VOLUME 4 • SPRING 2015
MARIN ALSOP • BSO MUSIC DIRECTOR AND ORCHKIDS FOUNDING DIRECTOR
page 2 & 3
orchkids create their
own music
page 4
Awesome orchkids
experiences
page 5
orchkids travel to
waterbury, connecticut
page 6
student
achievements
OrchKids teaching artist Lavena Johanson leads the string ensemble | photo credit: Colin Sorgi
ORCHKIDS PROGRAM ENGAGES OUR
SCHOOL COMMUNITIES
Nick Skinner, OrchKids Director of Operations
The BSO’s OrchKids program serves over 800 children at five Title I public schools in East and West
Baltimore. We engage our OrchKids in a wide variety of activities -- musicianship class, bucket band, group
lessons, choir, tutoring assistance, ensemble rehearsals, chamber music rehearsals and we provide dinner for
each OrchKid daily!
Perhaps as an OrchKids fan you already knew this. But did you know that OrchKids’ impact extends
beyond the students enrolled in our program? We invite all the students at each OrchKids site school for field
trips. These include not only the Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall and the Peabody Conservatory. We also
visit Baltimore museums, Orioles games at Camden Yards, and many of Baltimore’s other vibrant institutions.
Social, artistic and musical journeys like these really help expand kids’ cultural and social horizons.
In addition to field trips, OrchKids coordinates school-wide assemblies for each OrchKids site. We
invite distinguished guest artists to perform for and engage these school communities. International superstars
-- Midori, the Venezuelan 7/4 Trumpet Ensemble, BSO percussionist Chris Williams, professional beat-boxer
Shodekeh – are among our assembly performers.
This past January, we brought Chelsey Green and the Green Project to each of our five OrchKids’ sites,
integrating classical music with popular songs. Presentations like these expose our kids to the world of music in
an upbeat and engaging way.
Perhaps the most powerful impact we have on our school communities comes when OrchKids
musicians perform for their peers (Youth for Youth concerts). Kids watching their peers perform on stage catch
an “I CAN DO THAT” attitude -- along with curiosity and excitement. Youth for Youth concerts help build
audiences and expand participation. And they embody a fundamental OrchKids tenet: using music education
to promote social change.
APRIL 26, 2015
Orchkids strings concert
Lockerman Bundy Elementary
4:45 PM – String players from
various OrchKids sites come
together to play a concert at the
Baltimore War Memorial. This
concert will feature the improv
duo, Invoke.
301 N. Pulaski St
Baltimore, Maryland, 21223
MAY 1 & 2, 2015
seminario 2015
allentown, pennsylvania
The fifth annual Seminario
featuring El Sistema programs
from all over the Eastern
Seaboard takes place in
Allentown, Pennsylvania this
year. Twelve OrchKids students
and several staff members will
represent Baltimore in this
exciting two-day collaboration.
MAY 5, 2015
East Side Spring Showcase
Highlandtown #215
5:30 PM – East Side OrchKids
grades K through 8 invite you
to celebrate Spring and all they
practiced this year,
from bucket band to choir,
recorders to string orchestra.
3223 E Pratt Street
Baltimore, Maryland 21224
Outdoor Amphitheatre
MAY 1 3, 2015
Orchkids spring fling
Booker t. washington
middle school for the arts
MAY 1 7, 2015
Art outside
druid hill park, Baltimore
1:00 PM – OrchKids students
perform at the Art Outside
6:00 PM – Students from all five
festival in Druid Hill Park. The
OrchKids sites will celebrate
spring and send off the school festival features numerous local
year in a terrific performance of Baltimore artists as well as food,
children’s activities and various
musical joy!
musical performances. Art
1301 McCulloh Street,
Outside was created to celebrate
Baltimore, Maryland, 21217
art and the park’s beauty.
(Enter on Madison Street)
ORCHKIDS CREATE AND PRESENT AN
OPUS... IN ONE WEEK!
Dan Trahey, OrchKids Artistic Director & Colin Sorgi, OrchKids Publications Coordinator
Every year, nearly 150 OrchKids students -- ages 5 to 18, from all five OrchKids sites -- come together to
collaborate in an exciting, week-long workshop called Creative Connections. The project immerses kids in the
process of creating music with their instruments and voices, and it’s facilitated by professional musicians and
educators.
Between March 14 and 20, OrchKids and students from other Baltimore City Public Schools worked
with OrchKids Artistic Director Dan Trahey and leaders from our OrchKids staff, the Guildhall School of
Music and the Peabody Institute of Music. In small groups, kids explored this year’s theme of “Chapters”
in depth. Using personal expression and creativity, they composed and performed a multi-movement piece
of music. The finished product was unveiled in a highly-anticipated performance at Baltimore’s prestigious
Shriver Hall on the Johns Hopkins Homewood Campus.
photos from creative connections week 2015: colin sorgi
the creative connections experience
Creative Connections is an international organization
born from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
(London, UK) and Barbican’s Creative Learning
department (London, UK). Creative Connections
emphasizes the creation and performance of music as
universally accessible, and it offers shared experiences
through which individuals, communities and cultures
can strengthen and expand. On the Sunday before
the week begins, a Creative Connections launch event
brings together everyone involved in the program as an
exciting way to introduce the project and announce the
week’s theme. Creative Connections Director Jill Collier
Warne says, “There’s this amazing feeling of being a
part of something larger than yourself and creating
something which really reflects the idea that the
whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts!
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Samuel Mumford, one of the Creative Connections Leaders, works with a small group of OrchKids | photo credit: colin sorgi
Chapters...
Choosing the theme
Our 2015 theme of “Chapters” explored wide-ranging
topics such as storybooks and the stages of life. Since
Creative Connections values the voices and energies of
all program participants equally, the theme is chosen
with the goal of finding a concept that will likely
resonate with everyone involved. Examples of themes
from past Creative Connections projects include
anything from broad concepts like “Neighborhoods”
and “Contact and Energy,” to specific works of
music, such as Benjamin Britten’s Simple Symphony.
Creating the music
The creative process begins with brainstorming and
experimenting with musical ideas that stem from the
chosen theme. Groups spend the week composing
rhythms, melodies and lyrics that will become part of
the final performance piece. One of the most exciting
aspects of this process is that the musical material is
not being dictated. As a result, everybody involved
plays an essential role in creating, whether playing
an instrument or using voice and body. “Because we
are playing by ear, we just record everything and keep
it from memory as best we can. The kids are amazing
at memorizing stuff they make up, so sometimes
they remind us leaders of how it goes,” says Warne.
The creative connections concert
After sharing and teaching each other their newly created parts
of the piece, the program participants fuse everything into
one extensive musical piece. The piece is performed for an
audience of students from the Baltimore City Public Schools and
members of the public at John Hopkins University’s Shriver Hall.
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photos from creative connections week 2015: colin sorgi
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GARRICK OHLSSON
PLAYS JUST FOR
ORCHKIDS
Rafaela Dreisin, OrchKids Senior Site Manager: Mary Ann
Winterling Elementary
On February 5, forty lucky OrchKids students
from Mary Ann Winterling Elementary School and
Highlandtown Elementary School had the special
privilege of attending their very own private performance
by world-renowned pianist Garrick Ohlsson. Ohlsson
invited our youngest OrchKids students, ages 4-6, to
sit around his piano on the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall
stage while he performed for them and answered all
their wildest questions! According to OrchKids attendee
Zaire S., “The music was very beautiful.” For some of
the students, this was the first live performance they’d
experienced. Garrick Ohlsson was a wonderful source of
inspiration for the students, and we look forward to seeing
some of our littlest OrchKids on that stage again one day
as performers. Ohlsson and OrchKids | photos: Britt Olsen-Ecker
ORCHKIDS AND BSYO DEBUT AT THE
KENNEDY CENTER
Nicholas Cohen, General Manager: OrchKids Program & Baltimore Symphony Youth Orchestras
On February 6, OrchKids students were joined by their peers in the Baltimore Symphony Youth
Orchestras in a wonderful, multi-genre performance on the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage in Washington
D.C. The concert featured more than 60 students in grades 3 through 10 performing a mix of classical, jazz and
pop music. Chi-Chi Nwanoku, principal bassist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, accompanied our
players in the orchestral version of Rihanna’s “Stay.”
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OrchKids perform at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage | photo: Chris Burch
ORCHKIDS AND BRAVO
WATERBURY! MAKE
MUSIC TOGETHER
page 5 • orchpress • Vol. 4 - spring 2015
Camille Delaney-McNeil, OrchKids Site Manager: Lockerman Bundy
Elementary School
For four intensive days in February, five OrchKids staff
members and five students traveled to Waterbury, Connecticut,
to collaborate in the “Inspired by Each Other” music project
with the Bravo Waterbury! program. Under the guidance of
Dan Trahey, Nick Skinner and the current Program Director,
Calida Jones, Bravo Waterbury! has become one of the leading
Northeastern El Sistema-inspired programs. It now engages
close to 200 students at two vibrant sites. This year’s OrchKids
participation included daily workshops in Bucket Band, Wind
and Brass Ensemble, String Ensemble, and Choir and featured
a diverse musical palette -- from Jean Sibelius to contemporary
Reggae artist Matisyahu.
One of our OrchKids guiding principles is to help
kids develop a mindset for mentoring. At Waterbury, we saw
this principle in action daily. Four veteran OrchKids (Desha
Banks, Lowrider James, Jada Lassiter and Andre Palmer)
were teachers, behavior models, encouragers and sources
of inspiration for Waterbury’s students. Staff members also
became instructors and were actively involved in classroom
learning, coaching students on how to be effective teachers as
well as structuring three hours of musical content daily.
This is the second year that the OrchKids program has
collaborated with Bravo Waterbury!, and we have high hopes to
make this partnership an annual event.
Desha and Jada travel to Waterbury, CT | photo: Hana Morford
OrchKids and Bravo Waterbury! | photos: OrchKids parent Deshane Parker
KUDOS TO ORCHKIDS ACHIEVERS
Hana Morford, OrchKids Teaching and Learning Specialist
The Baltimore School for the Arts recently accepted four OrchKids into its prestigious high school
program, including Joseph Wilkerson (percussion), Asia Palmer (flute), Jonah Lassiter (flute) and Lavar
Williams (voice).
Ten OrchKids will be attending the world-renowned Interlochen Summer Arts Camp’s Junior and
Intermediate programs this summer, eight having received full scholarships. This special opportunity was
extended to Imani Witherspoon (clarinet), Janai Charles (trumpet), Lowrider James (tuba), Keith Fleming
(tuba), Alicia Wilkerson (clarinet), Joseph Wilkerson (percussion), Devron Dennis (percussion), Asia Palmer
(flute), Jonah Lassiter (flute) and Keyona Carrington (clarinet).
Left: OrchKids students after Interlochen audition (from left: Alicia, Jonah, Janai, Imani, Dan Trahey, Keyona, Asia, Lowrider, Keith), Right: Lavar Williams will attend BSA next year | Photos: Kijafa James, Mairin Srygley
get involved
For more information on how to volunteer, make a contribution or donate instruments, as well as a complete list of OrchKids supporters,
please visit our website at orchkids.org
You can also contact us at OrchKidsTeam@bsomusic.org or send your contribution to:
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra | OrchKids Program | 1212 Cathedral Street | Baltimore, MD 21201
for more information, please visit
orchkids.org
follow us on Facebook!
bso orchkids
carol bogash v. p. of education and community engagement • dan trahey orchkids artistic director
nick skinner orchkids director of operations • nicholas cohen general manager: orchkids and bsyo
katie applefeld director of external affairs: orchkids • colin sorgi orchkids publications coordinator
special thanks to erin ouslander and mollie westbrook
page 6 • orchpress • Vol. 4 - spring 2015