Ask anyone, and they’ll tell you it’s important for children to be exposed to classical music.
Just Wednesday, a poll of 4,000 parents in Britain, conducted by Babies R Us, revealed that 78 percent feel playing classical music is important for their child’s development.
Whether there’s an actual “Mozart Effect” or not, classical music helps children learn.
This month, Andrea Peterson, a music teacher at Monte Cristo Elementary in the Granite Falls School District, will attend ceremonies in Washington D.C., as one of four finalists for National Teacher of the Year.
State Superintendent Terry Bergeson said of Peterson: “I admire Andrea’s cross-cultural approach to education. Even as a music specialist, she incorporates other subjects into her classroom to help students learn about music in a much larger context.”
Peterson says music is a particularly effective tool to help struggling students succeed.
With all this in mind, it’s disheartening to see the Everett Symphony’s Explore Music program struggling. The goal of the program, which began in 1994, is to introduce children to the wonders and beauty of classical music. The symphony holds two concerts a season at the Everett Civic Auditorium. Herald arts writer Theresa Goffredo has chronicled the program’s woes – declining attendance figures over the past four years. Concerts that once drew 4,000-5,000 students now regularly have an attendance under 4,000. The symphony can’t afford not to have a full house.
Many factors are at work: The difficulty of setting concert schedules when school districts haven’t yet set their school-year schedules; scheduling around the WASL; the cost of using the auditorium; and most of all, according to schools, the lack of funds for field trips.
The symphony is committed to its program. To save it, next year it will perform a few concerts at schools, rather than at the civic auditorium, and cancel its annual family concert, held on a Saturday. It plans to seek out sponsors for the program. It will take the year to regroup and come up with a plan for the program, said Jody Matthews, the symphony’s executive director.
The symphony deserves a standing ovation for doing all it can to offer, and maintain, this program.
The onus is now on us – the community and the school districts – to save and fund Explore Music. Sponsors should be seeking out the symphony, not the other way around. School districts, knowing the importance of music, must step up. Some lessons must be experienced, such as a symphony concert.
Sending children to a concert at the civic auditorium is an extremely affordable, yet invaluable, “field trip.” Instead of just singing the praises of music education, we need to actually provide it.
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