The Well-Tempered Ear

Classical music education: Madison Symphony Orchestra receives a major grant from Carnegie Hall to foster music education in the public schools.

By Jacob Stockinger

The Madison Symphony Orchestra has always taken community outreach and music education seriously. To see that, all you have to do is attend one of their student concerts in Overture Hall at the Overture Center (below) that are invariably packed with enthusiastic young listeners (below, in a photo by Greg Anderson).

Perhaps those efforts also help to explain how the MSO, which is celebrating its 20th season under music director and conductor John DeMain recently received one of 58 Link Up grants given nationally by Carnegie Hall (below) in New York City to foster music education in the public schools.

Here is the official announcement with details:

“While education budgets are constantly cut, here is a NEW program from the Madison Symphony Orchestra that invests in education and should be welcome news to parents, teachers and the greater community!

“MADISON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA PRESENTS LINK UP, NEW MUSIC EDUCATION PROGRAM FOR MADISON STUDENTS

“School children across Madison will get a unique musical opportunity this year.

“The Madison Symphony Orchestra (MSO) is the recipient of a prestigious invitation from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute to present Link Up, a music education program that will reach over 900 fourth-grade and fifth-grade students in Madison. 

“Link Up unites the classroom with the concert hall, giving young students the opportunity to explore music through a year-long curriculum of classroom activities, exploring rhythm, melody and orchestration using the musical instrument, the soprano recorder (below and at the bottom in a YouTube video of a piece by Johann Sebastian Bach).

“A culminating concert takes the students into Overture’s CAPITOL THEATER (below) to perform on their recorders WITH the MSO.

“Link Up will begin in September 2013 and finish with its interactive concert Thursday, May 15, 2014, at 10 a.m.

“The program is possible through a generous lead grant from the Madison Community Foundation in the amount of $40,000 over two years. Other donors for the pilot season of this program include the Alliant Energy Foundation, The Evjue Foundation Inc., the Madison Symphony Orchestra League, Associated Bank, US Bank, and the Capital Times Kids Fund.

“The MSO’s 2013-2014 Link Up partner elementary schools will include: Allis, Chavez, Gompers, Huegel, Lowell, Marquette, Muir, Nuestro Mundo, Sandburg, Shorewood, Thoreau, and Van Hise, all within the Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD). 

“The plan is to expand the program to schools outside of Madison in its second year.

“Link Up is a nationwide initiative; the MSO is one among 58 orchestras in the US and abroad chosen to present it.

“For more information, visit madisonsymphony.org/linkup or contact Michelle Kaebisch (below, in a photo y Katrin Talbot), the MSO’s Director of Education and Community Engagement, at (608) 257-3734 x225 or mkaebisch@madisonsymphony.org (Kaebisch, a violinist who p;lays with the MSO, is also the new conductor in the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO) to take over from Thomas Buchhauser, who retired at the end of last season.

“Be sure to mark your calendar now for the May 15, 2014, 10 a.m. Link Up event when fourth-graders and fifth-graders perform with the Madison Symphony Orchestra.’

And The Ear says: Be sure to leave a message of congratulations or thanks, or some other comments, if you so wish, in the COMMENT section of this blog.