Kids missing out on symphony

Published 9:00 pm Friday, October 27, 2006

On Friday, the Everett Symphony tried to scare its audience of children by playing spooky music. The kids weren’t frightened so much as frightfully delighted.

Many kids, however, missed the show.

Over the years, the symphony’s Explore Music program, which introduces children to classical music, has suffered a drop in attendance of close to 2,000 kids.

The reasons for this decline are myriad and include the rising price of gas and the cost of a substitute teacher. The main culprit, however, seems to be the ever-shrinking pot of money that school districts use for field trips.

It’s too early to tell whether the Explore Music program will continue. Symphony leaders, though, are in a serious search for ways to keep it alive.

“This year is our pivotal year, where we’re asking how to do this better and working with the school districts to figure out how we can best fit this into their needs for our kids,” said the symphony’s executive director, Jody Matthews.

Advocates of the Explore Music program spoke passionately about the need to keep it going because they strongly believe that music is among the building blocks from which better students are made.

“In our schools, there’s always this emphasis of scores to go up, and there tends to be a focus away from arts,” said Ron Friesen, the symphony’s assistant conductor, who leads the program.

“It isn’t ‘Smart kids are in music,’ it’s ‘Music makes kids smart.’ That’s part of the promotion here. We’re not some hoity-toity club, and we believe in music for our kids and that it’s beneficial to their education.”

Cindy Olsen might be one of the most vocal proponents of the Explore Music program.

She’s a clarinet player in the symphony and a former music teacher at Chain Lake Elementary School in Monroe. For 15 years, she made it her goal to make sure every child in her classes went to a live symphony performance.

“Music is the foundation, the springboard that can enhance all the learning,” Olsen said.

Explore Music began in 1994. The number of children attending the concerts then drifted between 4,000 and 5,000.

For the last four years, attendance consistently has dropped below 4,000, dipping as low as 3,383 kids in 2002.

The reduced amount of field trip money is one reason for the drop, Matthews said. She also pointed out that concerts are only 45 minutes long and it’s more likely that teachers will opt for daylong field trips, which she said is understandable.

“We weren’t really designed for a field trip situation,” Matthews said.

Mary Waggoner, director of communications for the Everett School District, suggested another possible reason.

Until about two years ago, the symphony practiced in a school district facility, so there was no rental fee. In return, Explore Music concerts were free. Now the symphony uses its own hall for practices and charges for students’ tickets. A class of 25 students must have $75 for admission, plus the cost of a bus.

Matthews said Explore Music concerts have never been free, though the symphony did do a trade with the school district for use of rehearsal space and gave any Everett School District student free tickets for the symphony’s regular concert series.

“We have always had good participation from the Everett School District for these (Explore Music) concerts until recently, and we were told it was because of funding cutbacks,” Matthews said.

Field trip costs for Everett schools are covered by the individual schools, which budget for a designated number of trips each year, Waggoner said.

Also, field trips on school days are considered part of basic education, so students can’t be made to pay their own way, Waggoner said.

“As school resources have diminished, field trips of all kinds have also diminished,” Waggoner said.

Bruce Caldwell doesn’t buy the budget blues argument. He’s executive manager for the Washington Music Educators Association.

“It’s a shame our schools won’t fund that for the kids,” he said. “I taught for 31 years and we’re always in a budget crisis.”

Olsen, the clarinet player and former Chain Lake music teacher, remembered the days when each classroom used to get a field trip a year and the cost was covered.

Today, teachers must have the “tenacity of a pit bull” to make a field trip happen, she said.

“If you have any sense at all, you know that you learn by doing,” Olsen said. “The ideal classroom has field trips all the time. We don’t in our country. We just don’t pay it forward with our young children.”

Shar White, who team-taught with Olsen at Chain Lake, is now the music specialist at the new Fryelands Elementary School in Monroe.

This is the first year for Fryelands students to attend Explore Music. Because there is no dedicated money for music specialists in the Monroe School District, White got creative to ensure the kids were able to go.

The children each paid $3. The symphony agreed to sponsor 12 children. And the PTA covered the transportation cost after White submitted a grant request.

White said it was “one of those little dreams come true” that the students attended a live concert.

“You can’t substitute that with anything else,” White said. “You can read about it and look at photographs, but the only way to get it is to be there.”

Assistant conductor Friesen, who taught for 20 years at Stanwood Middle School, said one of the symphony’s goals is to be able to provide a free Explore Music program to children. That, of course, means sponsorships.

“We’re committed to providing this as a service to our community and to our students,” Friesen said.

Matthews said to help provide more children with the opportunity to participate in Explore Music concerts, the symphony has started to market to preschoolers and homeschoolers.

Still, the numbers haven’t climbed as symphony leaders would have hoped.

That’s why the symphony will be exploring its options this year, trying to get sponsors and doing more on-site ensembles in schools, possibly marketing or taking the symphony concerts beyond Everett to other nearby districts.

“We need to explore all options,” Matthews said. “We want every child to have the opportunity to experience live symphonic music, and we are dedicated to finding a way to do this.”

Arts writer Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424 or goffredo@ heraldnet.com.