The W.O. Smith Music School, the Nashville Symphony and Metro Public Schools have created a flagship music program that plans to get more instruments in the hands of Nashville’s youth. The partnership, announced yesterday, is reported today in the Nashville City Paper, and the Tennessean.

From the Nashville City Paper:

Stratford kids get instruments, instruction through ‘One Note, One Neighborhood’

BY AMYGRIFFITH agriffith@nashvillecitypaper.com

The goal is straightforward: Inspire kids to learn about music, then ensure there are no barriers whatsoever between those kids and their chosen musical pursuits.

A straightforward goal, but one that could potentially be expensive to deliver, given the costs associated with music lessons, instruments and transportation.

But several Nashville organizations - the Nashville Symphony, in partnership with East Nashville’s W.O. Smith Music School and Metro Nashville Public Schools - believe this is a goal that can be accomplished.

Through new program “One Note, One Neighborhood,” announced Wednesday morning, instruments, lessons, and transportation will be provided for all kids in MNPS’s Stratford cluster who want to play musical instruments. No one will be forced to participate, though programming and education for all ages is planned to spur inspiration.

“This program is a strategic, integrated approach to music education that has not been seen anywhere else in the country,” said Mitchell Korn, vice president of education and community engagement for the Nashville Symphony, at an announcement Wednesday morning.

The program is planned as a five-year “laboratory” program, with Robert Horowitz of Columbia University’s Teachers College measuring and analyzing its results. Once organizers know how the services are working, the intent is to attempt to bring them to other neighborhoods and school clusters as well.

“We look forward to having another announcement when we bring this program into other clusters,” said Jonah Rabinowitz, executive director for W.O. Smith.

Once the program is in full force, Korn said, kids in the second-grade will participate in instrument “petting zoos” designed to draw interest to certain instruments.

Korn didn’t provide an estimated cost for the services, though he said the program is made possible by “wonderful” gifts from Nissan North America and the Martin Foundation.

Organizers chose the Stratford cluster in East Nashville partly because it is “a community of need” with some music education programs already in place. A bonus, Korn said, is the neighborhood’s importance to the Nashville Symphony.

“So many of our musicians live in this neighborhood,” he said. “It’s our community.”

MNPS Acting Director Chris Henson said Wednesday that music and art programs, from an educational standpoint, can contribute to improvements in attendance, stimulation of student creativity, and the building of school spirit.

Henson - who noted that he is the son of a public school music teacher - said education in the arts also improves the quality of life for kids through adulthood.

“Life is not just about paychecks and fundamentals,” Henson said.

From the Tennessean:

Symphony expands music education a neighborhood at a time

Program in schools to offer hands-on instruction, learning opportunities

By JONATHAN MARX
Staff Writer

The Nashville Symphony’s next big movement comes outside the walls of Schermerhorn Symphony Center.

The organization on Wednesday launched a new initiative to transform music education in the city’s public schools - and perhaps, one day, all across the country. Dubbed One Note, One Neighborhood, the five-year program will focus on a cluster of eight schools in East Nashville and Inglewood.

Already, the Nashville Symphony’s outreach programs provide concerts in area schools, but One Note, One Neighborhood will greatly expand learning opportunities for students through master classes, professional development for teachers, and hands-on instruction for individual students, presented in partnership with the W.O. Smith Music School.

Mitchell Korn, the symphony’s vice president of education and community engagement, said this integrated approach provides a model for other American cities “because it focuses on improving one neighborhood at a time by providing significant music resources from the symphony at all levels of the education process.”

For now, One Note, One Neighborhood will focus on the group of schools that feed into Stratford High School, with students of all ages, backgrounds and income levels benefiting. Along with Stratford, the eight participating schools in the flagship program are: Cora Howe Elementary, Inglewood Elementary, Dan Mills Elementary, Rosebank Elementary, Bailey Middle School, Dalewood Middle School and Isaac Litton Middle School.

The W.O. Smith Music School will play a key role by providing after-school instruction to especially promising students. The school is currently in the midst of a major building project that will expand its capabilities, so this component will become part of One Note, One Neighborhood after the new facility opens in August. Participating students will be provided with instruments, transportation to the school, and lessons several times a week. Over time, Nashville Symphony intends to implement the program citywide.

Music has broad impact

“We know through significant amounts of research that music education has a very significant impact on reading and writing,” Korn said. “It’s a language in itself, and (in many ways) it’s very similar to what we call core curricular subjects. With music education, children have the opportunity to learn abstractions and concepts they have great difficulty learning through traditional methods.”

With the symphony’s announcement, interim director of Metro Schools Chris Henson expressed gratitude that the Symphony and others are jumping in with programs to help children “learn and grow.”

“Music and art programs spur creativity and allow children to develop areas of the brain-much as exercise and sports allow children to develop and strengthen muscles in their body,” Henson said. “As athletes build character on the field of competition, musicians and artists learn discipline and increase personal strengths that will serve them well in life,” he said.

For One Note, One Person to serve as a nationwide model, its success will have to be documented, so the symphony has hired Dr. Robert Horowitz of Columbia University’s Teachers College to study the program’s results.

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