Mass Creates First State Program to Support El Sistema Music Education
MCC's SerHacer will Fund Nine Community Programs
Boston, MA—This week the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) launched the first state initiative in the U.S. to bring music education to underserved youth through programs inspired by El Sistema.
SerHacer (To Make, To Be) will provide pilot grants, musical instruments, and technical support to nine youth music programs across Massachusetts. Led by local schools and social service providers, each program employs teaching and learning models based on El Sistema, which has lifted thousands of poor, disenfranchised children out of poverty through intensive musical training and social support in Venezuela, Argentina, & elsewhere. SerHacer will also fund new research to advance studies that show how making music helps children develop essential executive functioning skills such as focus, planning, and problem-solving.
SerHacer builds off MCC’s 20-year-old YouthReach Initiative, a nationally celebrated program that supports the arts, humanities, and sciences to help at-risk youth create better futures and become more active, engaged contributors to civic life and social justice, said MCC Executive Director Anita Walker.
MCC's SerHacer will Fund Nine Community Programs
Boston, MA—This week the Massachusetts Cultural Council (MCC) launched the first state initiative in the U.S. to bring music education to underserved youth through programs inspired by El Sistema.
SerHacer (To Make, To Be) will provide pilot grants, musical instruments, and technical support to nine youth music programs across Massachusetts. Led by local schools and social service providers, each program employs teaching and learning models based on El Sistema, which has lifted thousands of poor, disenfranchised children out of poverty through intensive musical training and social support in Venezuela, Argentina, & elsewhere. SerHacer will also fund new research to advance studies that show how making music helps children develop essential executive functioning skills such as focus, planning, and problem-solving.
SerHacer builds off MCC’s 20-year-old YouthReach Initiative, a nationally celebrated program that supports the arts, humanities, and sciences to help at-risk youth create better futures and become more active, engaged contributors to civic life and social justice, said MCC Executive Director Anita Walker.
MCC launched SerHacer at Artists for Humanity’s EpiCenter in South Boston, joined by leaders of Americans for the Arts, the National Guild for Community Arts Education, El Sistema USA, and dozens of other arts and education organizations.
“There are children across the Commonwealth and across the country who have been denied opportunity,” said Walker. “This room is full of individuals and organizations who are working to restore that opportunity—not only through academic support and music training, but by creating space for young people to discover their value, their voice, and their contributions.”
“Kids today need the arts,” said Robert Lynch, Americans for the Arts CEO. “They need the arts for better living, better academics and test scores, and for better coping with all of life’s challenges.”
State Senate Majority Leader Stan Rosenberg of Amherst called SerHacer “another innovation for Massachusetts that will help our young people lead more active civic lives and discover their own potential.”
The event also featured the Boston preview of “Crescendo: The Power of Music,” a new documentary about El-Sistema-inspired programs in Philadelphia and New York City directed by Jamie Bernstein, along with powerful performances by students fromSpringfield SciTech High School and Project STEP, which was recently named one of the nation's best after-school arts and humanities programs.
SerHacer will provide eight pilot grants and three planning grants for these El Sistema-inspired programs:
Through Seen & Heard, MCC's creative youth development blog, the MCC aims to illuminate the voices and visions of the young people in programs such as SerHacer, and to encourage and provoke the dedicated creative youth development practitioners who shape and deliver these vital programs across our state and across the nation.
About the Massachusetts Cultural Council
The MCC is a state agency supporting the arts, sciences, and humanities, to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts and its communities. It pursues its mission through a combination of grants, services, and advocacy for nonprofit cultural organizations, schools, communities, and artists. MCC's total budget for this fiscal year is $13.5 million, which includes a $12 million state appropriation and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. MCC also runs the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund in partnership with MassDevelopment.
http://www.massculturalcouncil.org/news/SerHacer_launch.asp
“There are children across the Commonwealth and across the country who have been denied opportunity,” said Walker. “This room is full of individuals and organizations who are working to restore that opportunity—not only through academic support and music training, but by creating space for young people to discover their value, their voice, and their contributions.”
“Kids today need the arts,” said Robert Lynch, Americans for the Arts CEO. “They need the arts for better living, better academics and test scores, and for better coping with all of life’s challenges.”
State Senate Majority Leader Stan Rosenberg of Amherst called SerHacer “another innovation for Massachusetts that will help our young people lead more active civic lives and discover their own potential.”
The event also featured the Boston preview of “Crescendo: The Power of Music,” a new documentary about El-Sistema-inspired programs in Philadelphia and New York City directed by Jamie Bernstein, along with powerful performances by students fromSpringfield SciTech High School and Project STEP, which was recently named one of the nation's best after-school arts and humanities programs.
SerHacer will provide eight pilot grants and three planning grants for these El Sistema-inspired programs:
- Berkshire Children and Families, a social service agency based in Pittsfield. Its Kids 4 Harmony program meets after school each day at Morningside Community School.
- El Sistema at Conservatory Lab, a Dorchester charter school that provides extended day learning that includes 15 hours of music each week.
- Bridge Boston Charter School, founded just three years ago and growing one grade per year at which every student makes music every day.
- Worcester Chamber Music Society, part of an afterschool program primarily serving children from poor and minority neighborhoods.
- Josiah Quincy School Orchestra Program, a Boston Public School, which offers an hour and a half of music, before and during the school day.
- musiConnects [...] which works afterschool with students who would not otherwise have access to music education.
- El Sistema Somerville, an afterschool program at the East Somerville Community School that is also supported by city government.
- Also three organizations will receive planning grants to explore new programming: Cape Conservatory in Hyannis; Boston Conservatory, which is working to develop a choral program for young people on the autistic spectrum; and Berkshire Children and Families, which will expand its work to North Adams next year.
Through Seen & Heard, MCC's creative youth development blog, the MCC aims to illuminate the voices and visions of the young people in programs such as SerHacer, and to encourage and provoke the dedicated creative youth development practitioners who shape and deliver these vital programs across our state and across the nation.
About the Massachusetts Cultural Council
The MCC is a state agency supporting the arts, sciences, and humanities, to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts and its communities. It pursues its mission through a combination of grants, services, and advocacy for nonprofit cultural organizations, schools, communities, and artists. MCC's total budget for this fiscal year is $13.5 million, which includes a $12 million state appropriation and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. MCC also runs the Massachusetts Cultural Facilities Fund in partnership with MassDevelopment.
http://www.massculturalcouncil.org/news/SerHacer_launch.asp