ROCHESTER, N.Y.—Eastman Pathways—a collaborative partnership between the Rochester City School District and the Eastman School of Music—will continue to offer quality music education to musically promising city youth for many years to come thanks to the generosity of many and the resulting successful completion of a challenge grant.
In 2003, the Eastman School was awarded a three-year $1 million grant for Eastman Pathways through the Talented Students in the Arts Initiative, a collaboration of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the Surdna Foundation. The grant called for Eastman to match the endowment portion of the gift on a dollar for dollar basis through private donations.
Launched in 1997, Pathways provides approximately 70 RCSD students each year with scholarship aid to pursue music studies at little or no cost through Eastman Community Music School. RCSD music teachers recommend outstanding fourth through tenth grade students who would benefit from Pathways. Interested students compete in an audition, and students who are accepted attend an orientation. In addition to weekly lessons on an instrument or voice, Pathways students follow their own path—thus the name “Pathways”—by enrolling in a wide variety of different courses depending on their ages, interests and ability levels.
Students showing exceptional musical ability and commitment may be eligible to pursue a rigorous course of study to help them prepare for entry into an undergraduate degree program in music, or possibly for admission to Eastman’s collegiate division.
Of the students who graduated last year, several are now studying music as a major in college. Many Eastman Pathways students participate in the Eastman in-house New York State School Music Association Festival held each year in mid-May. Forty-four Pathways students participated in the competition last year, and 37 Pathways students participated in the Monroe County School Music Association Festival last January.
The Eastman Community Music School offers an array of music instruction including private lessons, classroom studies and hands-on musical training for youth and adults, high-quality pre-collegiate preparation and numerous performance opportunities.
The mission of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation is to improve the quality of peoples’ lives by nurturing the arts, protecting and restoring the environment, seeking cures for diseases, and helping to protect children from abuse and neglect.
The Surdna Foundation, a national family foundation established by John E. Andrus in 1917, focuses its grantmaking in five program areas: Environment, Community Revitalization, Effective Citizenry, the Nonprofit Sector, and Arts. Its Arts Program themes, aim, in various ways, to improve the artistic capabilities of teens.