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The School Residency programs offer music departments of local public schools the opportunity to have prize-winning professional musicians coach and perform one-on-one for and with music students and their teachers, motivating the students to improved performance and strengthening the curriculum.   The residencies have introduced students to classical music through various types of ensembles, in concert and in year-long programs in Bridgeport, Norwalk, Trumbull, Fairfield, Westport, Weston, and Redding.   Funded largely by individual and foundation support, the program has also received grants from Chamber Music America, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Connecticut Commission for Culture and Tourism.

For the last six years the Enso String Quartet, an internationally known ensemble, based in New York City, has been working intensively in the Bridgeport school system.  They visit middle school string students at High Horizons and Multi-Cultural Middle Schools in Bridgeport throughout the year.   During these visits the quartet performs selections from the quartet repertoire and treats the students to many of the great composers -- Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Ravel, Schumann, Brahms, Shostakovich.  

The quartet works with the students to improve the pieces they are learning in class and emphasizes the importance of good technique.  The main goals of these residency visits are to advance student skills and musicianship; to strengthen enrollment in the school’s string program; to expose students to first rate musical performances; to foster personal relationships with professional musicians; and the energize the entire string program in the school.  

In addition to the residency visits, Music for Youth has initiated a Musical Exchange program between the Bridgeport middle school students and their counterparts in suburban schools.  For the past three years, first in Redding and then for the last two years in Weston, the Enso Quartet has come to coach students in a combined orchestra of inner-city students from Bridgeport and students from the suburban community.  The young people learn selected pieces with their teachers, then travel to each other’s schools and work together under the guidance of the quartet.  The students have a unique opportunity to meet a brand new group of young people also engaged in learning to play music.  

Music for Youth firmly believes that music is the perfect means of bridging gaps between people from different communities and cultures, and a chance for students to move comfortably from their own environment into a new one by jointly tackling the task of making music together.  The results have been excellent music-making, a warm relationship with the quartet, “personal best” achievement for individual members of the Musical Exchange orchestra, and a renewed commitment to their instruments for many students.  The culminating day of the Musical Exchange includes a joint concert in each community and a celebratory pizza lunch for all!  

Teachers and administrators from both Weston and Bridgeport have been thrilled with the results of the Musical Exchange and have expressed their enthusiasm for its continuation.  The Enso Quartet, an incredibly dedicated and talented ensemble, wholeheartedly supports this program.  We look forward to another year of opening young people’s minds and hearts to the joys of chamber music and in helping school music programs foster the players and audiences of the future.  To hear the Enso Quartet, visit ensoquartet.com. 

In past seasons Residency programs have been offered in Norwalk with the Cassatt String Quartet as mentor to middle school orchestra classes; and in Trumbull with the Imani Winds as mentor to the brass and wind players in the middle school band classes.  Other notable artists and ensembles who have participated in the Residency program have included: the Lyric Piano Quartet (with violinist Glenn Dicterow), the Eroica Trio, the Borromeo, Miro, Jupiter and Pacifica String Quartets, and pianist Alpin Hong.

“I will never be able to thank Music for Youth enough for the opportunity to work with the Enso Quartet in the School Residency and Musical Exchange program!  It has been a wonderful experience!”.  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . Franz Ryerson, Weston orchestra teacher

“I thank you so much for bringing the Enso Quartet to High Horizons (in Bridgeport).  They really encouraged me to be a better violin player and taught me things I never knew before.  Please bring them back next year!”.   .   .   .  Stephyn Velazquez, Bridgeport student