Engaging the Community

The August Virtual Discussion Panel, Engaging the Community, focuses on symphonic educational and community outreach programs, often referred to as community engagement. We’ve put together a panel of musicians and symphonic education directors, plus a music director and a board member, all of whom have a great deal of experience in designing and running the education and community engagement projects in their own orchestras. The panelists will examine programs that work very well and try to identify what makes them successful, and also take a look at a few that are works-in-progress. We invite your comments on successful programs you’ve experienced, as well as the lessons you’ve learned from programs that didn’t work so well.

Yvonne Caruthers, a new member of the Polyphonic.org board of directors and a cellist with the National Symphony, has been my partner in putting together the August Virtual Discussion Panel.

From Yvonne:

I’ve been active for about 15 years in the field of orchestral outreach and education. I find it to be some of the most rewarding work that I do as a professional musician. I know that many, many other people are doing similar work in cities across the country and around the world, but until now there hasn’t been a good way for us to be in contact with each other. I’m very excited by this Virtual Discussion Panel on the topic of Orchestral Outreach/Community Engagement because I’m hoping that it can be a vehicle for many of us to talk to each other about what we’re doing and how we can do it even better.

Before I got involved in this aspect of my orchestra, I was often a dissatisfied player. I performed in many concerts where I felt the audience hadn’t a clue as to what they were hearing, and had very little appreciation for what the orchestra was presenting to them. I talked to our management team several times about schemes to re-think the way we presented concerts—all to no avail.

But that’s no longer the case with my orchestra —is it with yours? What’s going on in your orchestra? Have any changes been made in how your orchestra presents concerts? What are those changes? Are the musicians involved in helping to make those changes? Do you like the changes? How do your audiences respond? What do you think still needs to be done?

From Ann:

I was inspired to put together this VDP in part because of the intense response to my own orchestra’s (Hartford Symphony) engagement with Hartford’s African-American community through our annual Martin Luther King “I Have a Dream” concert, for which we won a MetLife award in 2005. The weekend-long celebration includes a black-tie gala that has become one of the most important social events of the year, the concert itself at a 3,000 seat Baptist Cathedral featuring recent winners of the Sphinx Competition, and several repeat performances for student audiences from throughout Hartford. The audiences/participants for all these events are very racially mixed, and the initiative has spawned a series of Sunday afternoon concerts, Musical Dialogues, that feature discussion and performances by young African-American and Latino artists in urban Hartford churches, hosted by Edward Cumming, music director of the Hartford Symphony.

One concertgoer to the “I Have a Dream” concert wrote to Mr. Cumming, “I have personally watched you take the threads of this community and try and make a tapestry that attempts to bind, not divide.”

But what makes this MLK concert successful for the entire greater Hartford community when so many orchestra’s MLK concerts seem mere obligatory events or, worse, tokenism? What are the ingredients necessary for an orchestra to truly engage its community – especially if part of that community does not typically embrace Western classical music?

Related Articles

During the Engaging the Community VDP, we feature Yvonne Caruthers’ interview of Eric Bertoluzzi, in which he describes the very successful education program, Up Close and Musical, run by some musicians of the Colorado Symphony. This program can serve as the starting point for a hopefully spirited discussion of the nature of community engagement and how it differs from community to community. How can a program that works so well in Colorado be adapted for a New England or southern community? Can it be? What is a symphony’s obligation to its community? Just what do we mean by “outreach” and how can we judge whether we’re successful at it?

Additionally we urge you to take a look at all the excellent Education & Community Engagement articles already posted on Polyphonic.org:

Symphonic Education Programs, by Yvonne Caruthers
Orchestra Players as Educators: A Brief History, by Yvonne Caruthers
Where Did the Music Go?, by Leonard Slatkin
On Tour with Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra: Reaching Out to Aboriginal Children, by Claire Speed
Performing for Aboriginal Children, an interview with Doug Burden by Yvonne Caruthers
Educational Residency Programs at the Oregon Symphony: A North Bend Case Study, by Michael Kosmala
Getting the Show on the Road, Part I: Ideas, by Gary Race
Getting the Show on the Road, Part II: Preparation and Scripting, by Gary Race
Getting the Show on the Road, Part III: Rehearsal and Performance, by Gary Race
Musicians as Educators: Reflecting on Learning Experiences, by Ruth Cahn
The Adopt-a-Player Program Enables Toronto Symphony Musicians to Make In-Depth Community Connections, by Bill Cahn
Performing for Special Needs Children, an interview with Holly Hamilton by Yvonne Caruthers
Playing for Young Children, by Paul Silver

And Jon Deak has an article in the Harmony archives:
Children’s Creativity and the Symphony Orchestra: Can They Be Brought Together?