“David Connor, a bassist who was hired as one of the Houston Symphony’s first community-embedded musicians over the summer … devotes a large amount of his time to education and community work,” writes Amy Bishop on Thursday (3/3) at the Houston Public Media website. “That includes taking part in the Houston Symphony School Residency at Crespo Elementary. What separates Houston’s program from similar ones is that the two participating community-embedded musicians at Crespo are full-time symphony employees, but spend 80 percent of their time in the community and 20 percent onstage playing concerts. That’s an opposite ratio from existing Houston Symphony musicians.… All four of the community-embedded musicians—David Connor, Jenna Barghouti, Anthony Parce, and Hellen Weberpal—recently gave a concert for the students and their parents at the school.… So far, more than 400 students at Crespo have taken part in the initiative. The goal is to expand it to other schools.” The program was inspired by a New York Philharmonic initiative from more than 22 years ago. Said Krista Martinez, a parent of one of the students at Crespo, “It’s such an important thing.”
Posted March 7, 2016
