“The Portland Symphony Orchestra is providing new and expanded educational and outreach programs for students across Maine,” writes Kate Irish Collins in Tuesday’s (9/4) Forecaster (Falmouth, ME). “A grant from the Rines Thompson Foundation … allowed the PSO to hire an education coordinator to expand the reach of its music education programs [which] ‘have been growing at an incredible rate, nearly doubling in size in the last four years,’ ” said John Elliott, the orchestra’s director of education and community engagement. “The PSO used the money to create a new full-time position that’s partly responsible for personnel management and partly for overseeing its education and community programs…. Martin Webster, the new community programs coordinator, oversees more than 200 education and community outreach events annually…. Elliott said when the PSO engaged in long-term strategic planning several years ago, it identified five areas of consistent need in communities across Maine, and music and arts literacy was one of the top needs. ‘We have been working ever since to … dramatically increase the scope and frequency of our education and community events [and] design our programs to have a stronger connection to the educational goals of the teachers and classrooms that we visit,’ he said.”
Posted September 5, 2018
