In Sunday’s (6/22) Boston Globe, James H. Burnett III reports about the Handel and Haydn Society’s new programs bringing music education to public schools. “Boston’s Handel and Haydn Society, the period instrument chorus and orchestra that bills itself as ‘America’s oldest continuously performing arts organization,’ decided last fall to tackle [diversity and music education] issues in a new partnership with two city elementary schools.… Since September, at the Lee School, Handel and Haydn instructors known as ‘teaching artists’ have been giving weekly school day voice and choral lessons to kindergarten and first-grade students. At the Kennedy School, the program has provided school day vocal and choral lessons to middle schoolers and after school lessons for elementary students. ‘So many schools are struggling with academic budgets, and in that struggle arts programs are often short-changed or overlooked completely,’ says Bill Pappazisis, Handel and Haydn’s assistant director of education. ‘Programs like this are important for us, so we can make sure the opportunity to learn music is there for diverse groups of kids.’ … Anita Cooper, a parent who helped lead the charge to bring some kind of arts program to the Kennedy School, says she and other parents consider the partnership with Handel and Hayden to be a roaring success.”
Posted June 23, 2014
