music education

Have you ever wanted to commission a new piece of music for your music students but not had the money to make it happen? Sixty five symphony orchestras across the country have created a model for commissioning new music that could easily be replicated in public school music programs. The orchestras chipped in together to commission a new work by composer Joan Tower. The result is a work that makes use of material from “America the Beautiful.” Unfortunately the title… Read More »A possible model for commissioning a new piece of music

It’s always interesting reading about the various ideas people have in order to increase the attendance of younger people going to classical music concerts. Justin Davidson, guest blogging on Alex Ross’s The Rest Is Noise, recently offered his perspective on some methods orchestras are trying out (towards the end of his post). I’m in agreement that affordable tickets are one of the key ways to get more young people going to concerts. It was the exact thing I was thinking… Read More »Young people going to classical music concerts?

The BBC news website recently asked readers to submit questions and comments to music industry leaders regarding digital music issues. They then consolidated the most frequent and what they viewed as the most important questions and posed them to various leaders of the music industry, mostly from the UK. Take a look at the questions and answers for a very interesting look at where the industry in the UK stands on some important issues. This could lead to some great… Read More »Questions for the music industry

I posted earlier about African popular music and popular music influenced by African Muscians. This past Saturday night at Miller Theater I went to the “focus on Africa African Exchanges” concert. The program performed by William Chapman Nyaho on piano and So Percussion on various percussion instruments was phenomenal. The program focused on music written by African and African-American composers as well as composers influenced by traditional African Music. I wish there were more concerts that had programs like this!… Read More »African Art Music and Art Music Influenced by Traditional African Music

Here is my response, with additions, to a question about the effect the show American Idol has had on music education. “I have addressed the show American Idol in my 5th grade general music classroom in relation to the idea of assessing performances. After my fifth grade students create original compositions and perform them for each other we speak about what criteria we would use to assess the compositions and performances. We use American Idol as a reference for discussing… Read More »American Idol and Music Education