On May 6, students from Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota presented a concert in Minnesota Orchestra Hall’s Target Atrium as part of the Minnesota Orchestra’s new Arts Access project. Over the course of the 2016-17 season, orchestra staff and musicians have been partnering with ComMUSICation, an afterschool choral youth-development program based in Saint Paul’s Promise Neighborhood, and with the MacPhail Center for Music in Minneapolis’s Northside. Minnesota Orchestra musicians support MacPhail’s programs at Ascension School and Harvest Preparatory School by playing alongside students in rehearsals and providing lessons. At ComMUSICation, musicians and students have been collaboratively composing arrangements to folk songs representing students’ backgrounds, to be featured in a future performance at Orchestra Hall. Participating Minnesota Orchestra musicians include violist Kenneth Freed and bassist David Williamson at ComMUSICation; violinist Pamela Arnstein and cellist Pitnarry Shin at Ascension School; and violinists Catherine Schubilske and Deborah Serafini at Harvest Preparatory School. Throughout the year, students have performed in spaces at Orchestra Hall; received free tickets and busing to Minnesota Orchestra concerts; and were provided with free tickets for friends and neighborhoods to attend concerts. A second year of collaboration with the school partners is planned for 2017-18.
Posted May 15, 2017
