Tagged: arts education

Out of the cuts included in the House Ways and Means proposal, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a public agency that promotes investment in the arts and sciences, is facing a 15 percent reduction in state funding. And arts advocates are moving quickly.

Matt Wilson is head of MASSCreative, an organization that lobbies in support of cultural organizations and arts and sciences education.

Earlier this summer, The Empire State Youth Orchestra traveled to China and South Korea. By the time the trip was over, the musicians had performed seven times in outstanding concert halls in Beijing, Shanghai, Seoul and Yeosu. They also played for U.S. service people and their families on the Army Base in Seoul. We spoke with Conductor Helen Cha-Pyo before the tour and she’s back now to with two student musicians to tell us how it went.

One of the largest parts of Tanglewood’s 75-year legacy comes from the hard work and awesome talent on display by the Tanglewood Fellows. As you walk along Tanglewood’s meandering paths, it’s easy to miss a series of small wooden shacks nestled amongst the pine trees. But, it is within those structures the Tanglewood Music Center Fellows hone their craft and learn from the masters. Today we welcome back our good friend Ellen Highstein – the Director of the Tanglewood Music Center – to share the TMC’s participation in tonight’s Tanglewood on Parade events and wrapping up the season.

This past weekend I, along with many other extremely fortunate citizens of the Capital Region, experienced a truly memorable event at RPI’s stunning Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center – or EMPAC.   Entitled John Brown’s Body, the event commemorated the sesquicentennial of the Civil War, and was a partnership of the Albany Pro Musica and the New York State Archives Partnership Trust.  The music was sometimes haunting, sometimes a call-to-arms, sometimes ethereal, sometimes dirge-like, sometimes jubilant and, at all times, exquisitely beautiful.

Musician, Stephen Clair, joins us to talk about The Beacon Music Factory - a music school for all ages.

For those public broadcasters who always ask the question: “Is classical music dead or doomed?” in interviews before every concert they air, this commentator has a simple coherent answer: “Only if you will it!”  Most Public Broadcasting execs seem privately convinced but too chicken to say, what they already believe.  So they ask the question, praying someone else will intone the answer they seek.  Theirs’ is a suspicion fallaciously raised, ever since ‘Classical Music’ was born.  In truth, as the inimitable ‘Satchmo’ Armstrong used to put it:  “There’s only two kinds of music… Good and Bad