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Strings for Kids
Artspace Community Arts Center, Greenfield MA
Artspace Community Arts Center will launch Strings for Kids this fall to establish a strings program serving third graders (40 kids the first year) in Greenfield. Students will have the opportunity to study violin weekly in small groups of 6 students, participate in a string orchestra, afternoon and weeklong string intensives, and to share their music with the community. Group lessons will take place at Newton School in the Expanded Learning Time program and at Federal Street School in the 21st Century After School Program. Eight students from Newton have already signed up for the Strings for Kids program as a result of a violin demonstration in the spring of '08.
Newton and Federal Street Schools do not have an instrumental or a general music program. Artspace has worked with these schools in the past collaborating on after school arts programs, visual arts curriculum development, early childhood art and music teacher training, artists-in-residence and performance programs, and by offering student discounts for classes at Artspace. It is our hope that at the end of four years of underwriting by Artspace, Strings for Kids will be adopted and financed by Greenfield Public Schools. Artspace will still provide performance opportunities for students in the program. Artspace is also collaborating with the Pioneer Valley Symphony – our very own wonderful orchestra in Greenfield – to establish, in the near future, a Youth Symphony.
We believe that Strings for Kids will positively impact the lives of the students involved and will promote positive parent and family participation. The second year of the program will serve 3rd and 4th grades, and viola and cello will be added to instrument options. Artspace will provide the string faculty and overall organization and funding for the project. Participants in Strings for Kids will be invited to participate in Artspace's Student Serenades, recitals, string orchestras, chamber music weekend intensive and summer string intensives. There will be no fee for these other programs/services.
Parents and grandparents will be encouraged to support their violinists by helping with the ensemble – either playing in it or helping with organization. Parents will be taught how to care for and tune their child's instrument, how to structure practice time at home, and how to encourage and support their child in this new learning adventure. Artspace's current string students will be involved in demonstrating the violin this fall at Newton and Federal Street Elementary Schools to encourage 3rd grade students to sign up for the program. Violins for the program will be purchased by Artspace and loaned those families who cannot afford the traditional rental fees. Each child will also receive a method book, rosin, extra strings, and a music stand. There will be no fee to participate in Strings for Kids.
Artspace already employs in our music program the instructors for the String for Kids – Cecilia Berger and Anna Wetherby. Both teachers are members of the Pioneer Valley Symphony. The string teachers see each other often and it will be easy for them to evaluate students on a weekly basis. Students will be asked to keep a weekly practice log and have it signed by a parent and turn it into their instructor each week. We will also solicit feedback from parents about the program.
In 2000, Artspace started a string program in the Deerfield (MA) Elementary School and underwrote the program for 2 years. We are happy to report that the program was adopted and financed by the schools in Union 38 – Deerfield, Sunderland, Whately and Conway elementary schools and Frontier middle and high schools. Forty children in grades 1- 6 participated in the program in 2000. Currently there are over 150 students involved in strings in Union 38. We are proud to have begun such a successful and powerful music program. Now it is time to do the same thing in Greenfield.
Goals/intended outcomes for students & parents:
*To develop discipline through musical instruction
*To gain experience with cooperating in a small group and with public performance
*To gain competencies in reading music and in playing an instrument
*To facilitate parent interest and participation in music instruction
*To increase self esteem of participating students
*To help parents/families support their string player at home
*To have students incorporated into the larger string community at Artspace and eventually a local Youth Symphony sponsored by the Pioneer Valley Symphony
The following are intended outcomes for Artspace:
*To develop an ensemble group for performance
*To develop a program that will attract students to Artspace and the Greenfield Schools
*To build community support and understanding of the role of arts in the community and schools
*To develop a significant mass of competent string players over the next four years
*To work cooperatively with the Pioneer Valley Symphony to establish a Youth Symphony in Greenfield
If you would like to make a monetary donation to the Strings for Kids program or if you have a ¼ or ½ size violin to donate, contact Mary Kay at Artspace.
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