Norman Lebrecht
The New Haven Symphony Orchestra’s Sept. 12 newsletter indicated that the organization “is competing with charities nationwide for grants ranging from $10,000 to $250,000 from the Chase Community Giving program.” The electronic mailing encouraged recipients to vote for the orchestra on the program’s Facebook page and explained that “the grant would be used to support NHSO education programs operating in 42 towns across Connecticut.”
In addition to its education initiatives, which include a recently announced partnership with the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra and Alexion Pharmaceuticals, the NHSO’s profile seems to be rising as other orchestras struggle to exist. That’s not to say that the NHSO doesn’t face challenges, that its administration has answers that others don’t, or that the musicians who make up the ensemble always agree with the leadership’s management of the organization.
Still, the NHSO has in the past few years released a critically acclaimed CD and has been recognized by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and the League of American Orchestras for its commitment to programming contemporary music. And these accomplishments reflect positively on the organization as a whole.
While speakers from both major political parties have been lauded and criticized for what they did and did not say during the recent Democratic and Republican national conventions, not much has been written about the fact that Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick’s remarks to Democrats in Charlotte, N.C., included references to the importance of art and music in education.
To whatever degree art and music are part of a student’s public-school education, young people will always pursue careers as artists and musicians.
In his Sept. 6 Slipped Disc blog entry, “The following US orchestras will not start the new season,” Norman Lebrecht wrote: “I cannot remember a time when so many US orchestras were simultaneously in such difficulty.”
To what degree are art and music part of your child’s public-school education, and to what degree should they be part of the curriculum?