LiveConnections Uses Music to Bridge Gaps for Philadelphia Youth

Living Music

How music venue World Cafe Live is filling a gap for Philadelphia school students

Oct. 27, 2016

"We are in a state of affairs now," Frank Machos, the Director of Music Teaching for the Schoolhouse District of Philadelphia, said in a recent interview. "If a main opens a new plan or we rent a new teacher, they are at the mercy of whatever resources have been left in place."

This is true of many things in the school district, merely especially of music programs. Most Philadelphia schools practice non take a full-time music instructor. Instead, they lay partial claim to an afoot music teacher teaching hundreds of students at several schools over the form of the week. Fifty-fifty those who exercise take a full-time instructor often lack the resources to fully support a high-quality program so depend on the pure grit and determination of that music teacher to pull things together.

This learning gap was the genesis for LiveConnections, a nonprofit in residence at the music venue Earth Cafe Live, that bolsters students' access to quality music learning, with free interactive music educational programs for schoolhouse groups, and by sending professional musicians to work in schools. Since 2008, the program has worked with more 30,000 2nd to 12th graders from more 35 city schools—and it'southward continuing to grow.

"We believe music is a human right," says LiveConnections' Executive Manager, Melinda Steffy, who is a musician and creative person herself. "It's a fundamental office of how we express ourselves."

LiveConnections was founded eight years agone by the force behind Earth Buffet Alive, Hal Real and iii partners. The venue was night during the twenty-four hour period when schoolhouse is in session, they realized, and they were well aware of the struggles area schools face when it comes to music didactics. So they began to ask, What tin can we do?

"We're not preparation students to be musicians," says Steffy. "Information technology's much more about appreciation of music. Music is a really powerful tool for helping students sympathise other concepts—earn about civilisation, history, fifty-fifty applied science. That kind of innovative thinking through music is something you don't go anywhere."

They talked to schools about what would all-time serve their needs. Could they bring their students to World Cafe Live for an afternoon field trip to learn music skills? At first, the response was disheartening. We merely don't have the budget, schools retorted. Many couldn't even afford the toll of the buses to transport students from schoolhouse to the venue. So the LiveConnections team realized they would have to change their model, making the whole experience, which they call "Bridge Sessions" as a nod to the idea of bridging the gap between school children and musicians, downwards to the nickel, completely free.

They launched their Bridge Sessions in 2008, bringing distinguished musicians from the Philadelphia area to Globe Buffet Live 50 times a year. The 90-minute sessions, which tend to be grouped in October and November (they merely launched for this year) and once again in February and March, are for 150 students at a fourth dimension, grouped past age. They are one part concert from musicians who hail from diverse cultures and traditions in Philadelphia's vast music scene, including The Philadelphia Orchestra and Arab culture nonprofit Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture, and 1 role easily-on music education session. Throughout, the musicians are down on the floor level with the students, non on the phase, to eliminate barriers while they break down musical skills into chunks that students can actually wrap their easily around. (These school group sessions tin also exist adapted for adults with concrete and cognitive disabilities, which LiveConnections does at least 3 times a year.)

"We're not grooming students to exist musicians," says Steffy. "It'south much more about appreciation of music. Music is a really powerful tool for helping students sympathise other concepts—learn about civilisation, history, fifty-fifty technology. That kind of innovative thinking through music is something you lot don't get anywhere."

There are no specific qualifications for a schoolhouse to take advantage of the program, though it has tended to focus on schools with greater need and schools located within city limits. LiveConnections works with traditional district and charter schools, and with schools that both have a total-time music teacher and schools that don't. LiveConnections attends events for teachers and principals to spread the news about their programs, only near effective has been discussion of oral cavity, says Steffy.

LiveConnections is funded mostly through grants from foundations but also partly through KickStarter and a x-day annual button to solicit individual donors, like to a public radio membership bulldoze.

In addition to the Span Sessions, LiveConnections sponsors Philadelphia artists to exist in-residence at two schools per yr to piece of work on an in-depth project with students. Last year, the musician Andrew Lipke spend a twelvemonth-long residency at Henry H. Houston School in Mountain Airy. He and the students created an original xvi-rails anthology chosen "A Day in My Life."

"Houston had been coming to our interactive Bridge Session concerts for a few years, and I was struck past the commitment and vision of their music teacher Ezechial Thurman," says David Bradley, i of the co-founders of LiveConnections. Thurman and Bradley wanted to create an album that would capture the ideas and spirit of the school.

Poet and teaching artist Jacob Winterstein (a Houston alum) led poetry workshops with the whole school, while Lipke, Thurman and Bradley himself worked with a cadre group of 35 4th to eighth graders to develop songs; about twenty professional person artists collaborated with the kids at unlike times.

"Every 24-hour interval when I wake upward it'southward another struggle," sing a chorus of young voices on a peculiarly moving track. "Gotta see mom and dad become through another hustle."

The album immune Houston students to travel to the National Constitution Center, make a song with the rock band Abode from Andrew Jackson Elementary Schoolhouse in South Philly, record at World Cafe Live and Studio 4 in Conshohocken and create a music video.

In improver to the Houston schoolhouse project, LiveConnections has run after school percussion camps at Christopher Columbus Charter School. They have likewise sponsored 2-week summertime camps at schools where they have built deep relationships.

"We're flexible," says Steffy. "We're most focused on what does the schoolhouse demand from us and how can we make that happen?" This year they'll be bringing their after schoolhouse percussion program to iii schools, and are looking at doing a twelve-week program in move and social justice.

Terminal year, of 47 schools and organizations, 44 asked to return, and the program even added a few new ones. LiveConnections is totally full this flavor, Steffy says, and they'll have to raise more money if they want to open their doors for more schools. "One time a school comes," says Steffy, "they want to keep coming back."

Concluding year, of 47 schools and organizations, 44 asked to return, and the program even added a few new ones. "One time a schoolhouse comes," says Steffy, "they want to go along coming back."

Finally, LiveConnections besides runs a curated concert series that takes the ideas of collaboration and chance on which the youth programs are founded and puts them on display for adults. The vi concerts per year are unique: A curator with a deep cognition of Philadelphia's music scene comes up with a unique combination of artists to invite to the stage for a collaborative concert.

They commission new music, often music that doesn't fit into any established genre. This year's line-up promises "video game music composed by Curtis grads" and "a rock star string quartet making harmony with a theremin performer;" legendary jazz bassist John Patitucci to genre-defying Sybarite5. (Their next concert is on December 1).

Having such an explicit emphasis on creating new and innovative music, boundary-pushing lyrics, and deep learning rather than rote memorization of musical skills is unusual for a music educational activity organization operation in an surroundings of financial scarcity.

"I love how LiveConnections is both artist and student centered," says Bradley. "Nosotros are always listening for the ways music tin can spark discovery—whether it's a world premiere in our concert series or a collaboration between a group of students and a musician. That's a very alive place to in which to work and learn."

Steffy says LiveConnections hopes the organization allows students and musicians both to generate bold music that reflects an authentic creative practise that may not fit neatly into established ideas of music or performance.

"Music can be bigger and more than inclusive than we recall," she says. "It has and so much potential to do great things."

Corrections: An earlier version of this story said Live Connections has worked with 5,000 students since 2008; it'southward actually 5,000 per year, for 30,000 total. It too said the program has had a percussion grouping at Brejy Elementary Schoolhouse; that is a future programme.

Header photo past Jaci Downs

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Source: https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/world-cafe-live-liveconnections/

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