“So darling, darling, stand by me. Stand by Me,” said Teen singing with a group of drummers and other musicians at the Betty T. Ferguson Amphitheater in Miami Gardens.
The first open-air concert was the culmination of a two-year pilot program that provided free music education to more than 4,000 Miami Gardens public school students as part of the Miami Foundation’s Music Access Miami Initiative. The goal is to extend the program to other public schools in Miami-Dade County so that 12 students from Pre-Kindergarten have fair access to music education.
“We know that when students have access to music education, there are certainly all the big benefits like academic performance … but in the last few years, as part of this turbulent year, we What he especially saw was the unleashing of art education, said Cunha Laurie, director of music access, art and culture at the Miami Foundation. “It’s a young man’s belief in himself, seizing opportunities and opportunities. Unleash the power to create, and that’s what we want from all young people. “
Principal Aisha Marello said he saw the students change at the 3250 NW207th St, North County K-8 Center in Miami Gardens.
“Music is like awakening all the senses of our students,” she said.
The school, which has about 370 students, received a grant from the Miami Foundation to obtain keyboards, drums, and other musical instruments for grades 2-5 music classes. Young Musicians Unite provides schools with music teachers to start bands and drum lines. GuitarOver Guns offers an after-school care program for 6th to 8th grade children who can create and learn different types of music, including composition and songwriting.
“You can see their smiles and the sense of accomplishment,” Marello said. “And again, it’s absolutely wonderful to have a student playing now, who has never picked up an instrument. It’s amazing. It’s breathtaking. It’s precious.”
The Miami Foundation Music Access Miami Initiative began with a $ 4.5 million donation from philanthropist Daniel Lewis and has led to the creation of the Miami Garden Music Alliance, which now includes 12 schools in Miami Garden and seven non-profit organizations: Achieve. Miami, Arts for Learning, Guitars Over Guns, Miami Music Project, and Young Musicians will unite to save the Music Foundation and the Interlochen Arts Center.
According to Laurie, the Miami Gardens Youth Music Festival on May 21 will celebrate the development of the alliance, including performances by students and ensembles from several Miami Gardens schools and other young performers throughout the county. did.
In a news release, Lewis described the festival as a celebration of the work of “filling the gap in music education in Miami-Dade County” and serving as a “benchmark to measure future progress.” Music Access Miami is also working with Miami-Dade Schools to update an online map of where students have access to programs in all arts and where gaps exist.
Laurie, director of the initiative and a graduate of the New World Arts School’s opera program in downtown Miami, sees music education as an example of how it can help open the door to opportunities. A graduate of the University of Florida can trace his passion for music back to Ojas Elementary School near Aventura. There he started singing and was encouraged by a fifth grade music teacher.
The music education he grew up in helped him get scholarships for free college rides, including Magic City Opera, Slowburn Theater, Opera Naples, Florida Grand Opera, Orchestra Miami, Cresmer Orchestra, and M Ensemble.
“I feel really, really, really lucky. It was all a coincidence that I experienced what I did again, and they all ended up in the zip code I lived in.” Raleigh mentioned access to the music education he grew up in.
“And that’s very powerful about what’s happening in Miami Gardens. Students have a lot of choices. If you want to participate in an orchestra program, you can. If they want to learn about music production. , They can do that. They want to learn about hip-hop and rock, “Raleigh said. “What we know is that there is no prescription for music education, and it takes many forms, like creativity, so that students are meaningful, powerful, and relevant to themselves. I want to be able to explore. “
There’s never been a boring moment in Florida — and Michelle covers it as a real-time / breaking news reporter for the Miami Herald. She graduated from Florida International University with an honor, where she was Editor-in-Chief of Student Media Panther NOW. She previously worked as a news writer on WSVN Channel 7, and she was a Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism Fellow from 2020 to 2021.
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