The Essential Question that guided our projects’ focus was:
Through our 2nd-12th grade “in the schools” series, each program worked with different essential questions
Our Essential Questions build upon each other through each program. For each program, our Essential Questions offered were:
Musicians in the Classroom (2nd Grade): How do we discern the musical creators’ & performers’ expressive intent?
Anchor Standard #8: (Responding) Interpret intent and meaning in artistic work.
Children’s Concerts (3rd-5th grade): How do disciplines, contexts, and daily life inform responding to music?
Anchor Standard #11: (Connecting) Relate artistic ideas and works with societal, cultural, and historical context to deepen understanding.
Ensembles & Conductors in the Schools (6th-12th grade): How do musicians improve the quality of their performance and when is it ready to present?
Anchor Standard #5: (Performing) Develop and refine artistic work for presentation.
Anchor Standard #6: (Preforming) Convey meaning through the presentation of artistic work.
Boise Philharmonic Youth Orchestra(9th – 12th): How do musicians make meaningful connections to creating, performing, and responding? How do other contexts & daily life inform creating & performing?
Anchor Standard #10: (Connecting) Synthesize & relate knowledge & personal experiences to make art
Anchor Standard #11: (Connecting) Relate artistic ideas & works with societal, cultural & historical context to deepen understanding.
At the conclusion of the project, students responded to questions related to the identified Standards:
Students are asked to respond by drawing pictures or writing letters about how the experience changed their view of music. Here are some of the comments that were received:
“I learned that violin’s can make many different sounds.”
“I learned that Musicians can be fun and music can be soft.”
“We learned high, low, & medium sounds. We learned predicting and we learned visualizing.”
“Today I liked when you taught me all about violins. I liked when you played scary music and gentle music and loud music. It made me think that aliens are attacking or that I was watching a very very scary movie.”
“I learned that you can hear words in music and music can sound happy, mad, sad, exciting, scary, or maybe even creepy.”
“I learned that music can tell a story even without words.”
Impact
We like to request feedback from both educators and the students who attended the concerts and participated in classroom visits. We receive hundreds of letters from students all-round the Treasure Valley. One student, Angel from East Canyon Elementary, wrote us the following,
“Thank you for making good music and the song that I enjoy is the one with the mule feet dancing. Mr. Franz you are very funny. The instrument that I like is the violin and I would love to play it. I love being in the auditorium because there were lots of instruments playing. When I’m in 6th or 7th grade I might join the band.”
Students from Title One schools, such as East Canyon Elementary, might not be able to join the Philharmonic on a regular concert day but this gives students a chance to experience the Boise Philharmonic and to be inspired to play an instrument.
Reflection
The Boise Philharmonic provides various types of education materials to help teachers prep and give feedback from our visits. These packets are a great tool for teachers to prepare their students with the necessary knowledge to be engaged in the different programs. We are constantly revising the programs and making them better.
From the feedback we did receive from teachers this past season, it was suggested that the classroom visits could be extended longer than the original 30 min window they have in the classroom. Teachers commented that the program can seem rushed, especially if the students are engaged and really participating in class discussion. This is something that the BPA will take a look at for next year’s classroom visits and see what would work best for the class and the musician.
