WSJ.com: If you heard that a concert hall with sparkling acoustics was boosting its programming, you might want to check it out. Its new jazz festival might be more incentive. And you might even want to support its effort to present a new musical to every fourth-grader in public and charter schools in the city.
Only the "city" isn't New York. It's Newark.
1 comment:
My frist introduction to the arts and music were on class trips. I remember one - which may have been at the NJPAC - that was particularly gripping that showed me how exciting the theatre could be. Hard to say if I didn't find theater and the arts exciting as a kid would I have gone into a career in the arts. But field trips to museums, concerts, and the theater absolutely helped me develop an appreciation for the arts. That is invaluable whether you work in the arts or not.
It's great that the new CEO of NJPAC is developing programs not only to enrich the arts in New Jersey but to make those events free and accessible to any student in Newark. Not only does it provide opportunities for children to develop an appreciation for the arts, but it connects a generation of young, lower income students to jazz. Newark like most cities in north Jersey has a lot of children coming from poorer homes. Though my jazz experience is limited to Kind of Blue and the Clark Terry Pandora station, I'm fairly certain that most jazz musicians are not upper middle class white males - ironically the class of people who have a surplus of income to fund and attend Jazz Festivals. Providing jazz to the children of Newark won't just bring good press and community relations to NJPAC it will help define jazz to people who may never get to experience it. Anyone who has experienced and felt the draw of jazz music can appreciate this gesture.
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