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School Residencies
During the 2006-2007 school year, Music for Youth will once again sponsor the Enso String Quartet in Residency in the Bridgeport, Connecticut schools. The Enso String Quartet will meet with the young people in Bridgeport on six separate all-day sessions between October and April.
The Bridgeport Residency, in its fourth year, is building on the success of previous Residencies by the Enso String Quartet. The Bridgeport program, supported by friends of Music for Youth, focuses on string students at High Horizons Middle and Central High Schools. Each visit includes a performance by the Enso Quartet, followed by one-on-one workshops of artists and students.
The Enso String Quartet
Working with the Enso Quartet has been an especially inspiring experience for Central High students, who now have formed their own student quartet.
The goals of these Residencies are to advance student skills and musicianship; strengthen enrollment in the string program; enable students to experience chamber music and first rate musical performances; let students have a personal relationship with professional musicians, and energize the entire string program.
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Each Residency program will conclude with a concert by the professional Quartets and their participating students.
Maureen Nelson, first violinist of the Enso Quartet, coaching Bridgeport students. |
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Over the years these Residencies have enhanced music programs in many local schools with such outstanding artists as the Lyric Piano Quartet; the Eroica Trio; the Zephyros Wind Quintet; the New Century Saxophone Quartet; the Avalon, Borromeo and Miro String Quartets; pianist Alpin Hong; and acclaimed violinist Jennifer Koh.
In addition to these elements of the residency, this year Music for Youth had added a "school music exchange program" involving Bridgeport's High
Horizons Middle School and John Read Middle School in Redding. About sixty sixth, seventh, and eighth graders from the two schools will participate in an exchange program in which orchestra members will visit each other's schools, listen to the Enso String Quartet, and be coached on pieces
together, first in Bridgeport, then in Redding. A third exchange will consist of a joint concert first in Bridgeport, then in Redding for a larger student audience. This exchange is an effort to show young people how music is a wonderful common language for all people, and how fun and meaningful it can be to play music with others, no matter where we may be.
For more information, call 203-227-1611;
or e-mail: vanhoorn@optonline.net.
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