As part of National Music in Our Schools Month, the orchestras of the El Dorado School District will be putting on a free concert Thursday night.
The concert will feature students from Washington Middle School, Barton Jr. High School and El Dorado High School in a 45-minute long show of music ranging from dance to classical to cultural.
Jennifer Michaels, the orchestra teacher at all three schools, said this is the first year the orchestras have participated in National Music in Our Schools Month (NMOSM) and the concert serves both as a way to do that and as a way to give back to the community.
The month is designed to put a spotlight on music education in schools, advocate for it remaining part of the offered curriculum and celebrate the students involved in the programs. It was started by the National Association for Music Education as two days in 1975 and expanded the program to a full month a decade later.
“The whole idea of Music in Our Schools Month in March is to promote music education in our schools,” Michaels said. “To celebrate our students are who involved in a music program in our schools and celebrate their talent or just show off what’s going on in our schools musically. Really, it’s to advocate for music education.”
This year’s theme is All Music All People, which Michaels said is reflected in the diversity of the music selection that will be played. She said the students picked what songs they would perform for the concert and that it’s a mixture of pieces the students have prepared for their recruitment concert and pieces students will be performing for their conference assessment.
To prepare, she has her students work in small sections during class and after school. Once the small sections have the piece worked out, Michaels brings them together into larger sections until the full class is performing together. Michaels said putting on a concert typically takes between four and eight weeks depending on how much music will be in the performance.
The concert will take place in the EHS auditorium. It will start at 6 p.m. and is free to attend. Michaels said by having a free concert, it’s a way for the orchestras to give back to the community that supports them.
“We want everybody to come,” Michaels said. “I don’t want financial obligation to be something that deters somebody from coming to a concert. I’m actually pretty positive that all of our concerts, unless it’s deemed a fundraiser, all of our concerts are free. That’s one way we can give back to the community because the community helps to support the school district and the school district financially supports the orchestra program by helping us purchase music and instruments and things like that. It’s our way to give back to the community because they’re the ones really and truly who are supporting our programs. It’s a great way to say thank you.”
Michael Shine may be reached at 870-862-6611 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter and like him on Facebook @MichaelAZShine for updates on Union County school news.