June 7th was a big event for the young musicians you see pictured above. They have officially graduated from our new flagship program, Doing Good!
Doing Good is a 30-week intense after-school program that teaches high school music students the basics of social entrepreneurship and community engagement. This program is broken up into two semesters. The first semester the students get to learn the “ins and outs” of social entrepreneurship, leadership, and community engagement. During the second semester, they get to put their skills to the test by creating and executing their projects. A special thank you to our two amazing teaching artists Susanna Loewy and Michael O’Bryan! Want to read more about Doing Good? Here's a link!
This year's project were:
Teens with Ambition
Imani Sanders-Rasul & Aj’ee Robinson
Two students collaborated to design and host a youth-centered event that addresses the lack of access students have to after-school and out-of-school time programs. The event consisted of a concert and resource fair that brought together a variety of arts, media, social justice, and leadership programs across the region. The team also provided free food and refreshments as a draw to students.
“Everyone is so talented in this program, and it was really nice to be in the same room as other musicians who cared as much as I do.”
Open Genre Music Book
Joseph Trachtman, Oleksandr Kashlyuk & Percy Weaver
This trio of students identified a common thread amongst themselves: they all loved music but hated practicing. They also imagined, and surveyed, other students with similar feelings. Their solution was simple: build a process that allows students to take their favorite songs, from any genre, and put them into templates that can be utilized for practice on their instrument of choice.
“Doing Good taught me about the ins and outs of starting a business, and the difficulties and challenges of working with others. It’s one thing to have a good idea. It’s much more difficult to actually make something concrete.””
Generation Music
Claire Casanova & Chloe Cooper
Generation Music saw two students collaborate to design a music appreciation curriculum for middle schoolers currently involved in band and orchestra programs. Their goal was to increase the general interest of students of color for classical music, ultimately hoping to impact the orchestral world and diversify its participants. Generation Music has since been approved for fiscal sponsorship through Fractured Atlas and is continuing their work.
“Project 440 gave me the opportunity to experience what teaching students would be like, and has helped me decide that I do want to go into music education.”
Center City Chamber Orchestra
Marquise Bradley, Davey Hiester, Jeramie Miller & Percy Weaver
A quartet of minds brainstormed an opportunity to create chamber music with minimal help from adults. They succeeded in making that happen and created a youth led chamber orchestra called The Center City Chamber Orchestra (CCCO). Since the end of Doing Good, CCCO has established a board and is currently planning additional performances for spring 2019. One of the founding members of CCCO shared, “The Doing Good program has allowed me to see how far you can take music without actually playing your instrument, and it has also has helped me to learn leadership skills that I wouldn’t have learned in school.
“The Doing Good program has allowed me to see how far you can take music without actually playing your instrument and its also has helped me learned leadership skills that I wouldn’t have learned in school.”
This program is supported in part by a generous grant from the American Orchestras’ Futures Fund, a program of the League of American Orchestras made possible by funding from the Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation.
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