High Mountain Strings is an affordable extracurricular weekly strings lesson and 12 week youth orchestra program for Valley County youth. The High Mountain Strings (HMS) program expands performing arts opportunities in our rural area, and the youth orchestra gives students an avenue to continue to improve their musicality and experience the joy of performing for an audience.
The Essential Question that guided our projects’ focus was:
Musicians judge performance based on criteria that vary across time, place and cultures.
Students gained an appreciation of classical music, proficiency in playing classical music and the pride that comes from performing and sharing music with others by working towards community performances as part of the orchestra or family performances as part of the strings lessons program.
Participants gained an understanding of how rhythm communicate meaning and how changes in those rhythms can change meanings. By working on a performance, students applied that knowledge to convey meaning in their own work. High Mountain Strings integrates guided instructor feedback into the program so that students improve their performance in a supportive atmosphere.
At the conclusion of the project, students responded to questions related to the identified Standards:
We are submitting video as evidence of student learning–please see the attached video
Impact
High Mountain Strings had 27 students regularly taking violin/viola lessons and 18 students in the youth orchestra in 2018-19. We have experienced steady growth, which is a testament to both the demand and the quality of the experience of this program.
Reflection
It has been tremendous to have a youth orchestra perform at our community concerts and have them so enthusiastically embraced by our rural community. We are truly fostering a love of music amongst our High Mountain Strings participants.