Thank you for helping to empower children through music education. This 2013-14 school year, Education Through Music-LA is serving approximately 6,000 children with sequential, comprehensive weekly music instruction and we are seeing the positive results first-hand.
We want to share story of 4th grader from Norwood Elementary School, Alberto, who his mother this year says he felt “secluded”. “I like music so much because it helps me to calm myself down when I am stressed or angry and I feel is the only way to I can express my emotions out. Music helps me to remember things. Music helps me focus in school, ” says Alberto.
His mother, Sara also shares, “Alberto has been the kind of child that day dreams a lot, and that was affecting his grades.” However, things have changed since he started learning music in school and participating in the band program:
[Music and band classes] have helped him a lot to overcome this habit, we are still working with him and I believe in the power that music could possibly instill in someone, and I see the results are happening…the more he plays, the more I see he is able to focus more on what he is doing, because it requires a lot of concentration on his part; and I’ve seen that he is now coming to a conclusion that school and music have the same connection in the sense that requires his full attention in order to learn new tones and notes to make the right song.
Teachers also see the impact of music, with 82.5% of classroom teachers in our partner schools noting that the music program has increased their students’ focus in school.
“We are not just teaching music, we are teaching life skills that are going to stay with these children for the rest of their lives; by learning to welcome challenges in music class, they are not going to avoid something in life just because it is hard,” shares ETM-LA Music Teacher Nicole Elliott.
Music has provided such joy and self-confidence for the children, who are all excited to showcase their learning this spring! This past April over 125 students from our partner schools across LA County came together for our Music Unites the World Festival to learn from and make music with Christophe Beck (Composer, Disney’s Frozen), Tim Davies (Score Orchestrator, Frozen) and Evelyn Halus (Vocal Coach, Jennifer Lopez, Neil Patrick Harris). And this month of May they’ll not only perform in their school concerts but 2 school groups from Castelar and Dorris Place Elementary will join Actor Dermot Mulroney (August: Osage County / My Best Friend’s Wedding) and LA Philharmonic Artists Bing Wang and Joanne Pearce Martin on May 24th! We hope you will join us!
We look forward to sharing more updates about our in-school music programs and our plans to expand our reach next year to an additional 1,000 more children in Los Angeles County. Thank you for helping us further our mission so every child may have hope for a brighter future!