Arie Lipsky, music director of the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, with children at one of the orchestra’s Kinder Concerts, which are held at libraries
partnership popping up in the media, and people coming up to me unprompted, asking when there was going to be one in their neighborhood, and what’s the schedule?” Mayes says that he doesn’t like having to turn people away but feels that because the library concerts are informal and offer opportunities to interact closely with the musicians, they offer a “personal kind of touch” you just can’t get in a traditional concert hall. Though new programs like the Atlanta Symphony’s library concerts may be getting high visibility at the moment, many ongoing orchestra-library partnerships—some old, and some new—take place unheralded, year after year, in communities big and small. Programs americanorchestras.org
run jointly between orchestras and libraries are so numerous they cannot all be named, but one common feature is filling gaps in arts instruction in public schools and reaching under-served members of the community. Programs range from music lectures (Maryland Symphony Orchestra) and instrument demonstrations (Spokane Symphony) to music and storytime programs for very young children (Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra, Canton Symphony Orchestra), citywide reading festivals (Toronto Symphony Orchestra), and advice on finding a private music teacher (Princeton Symphony Orchestra). In South Carolina, the Greenville Symphony Orchestra’s Lollipops program of concerts for young children, held in libraries, celebrated its 50th year in 2013. And in Pennsylvania, the Lancaster Symphony Orchestra introduced a Family Symphony Pass that allows students and families to reserve—via interlibrary loan at any public library in Lancaster County—a free ticket for a concert by the orchestra at Fulton Opera House. In her article “Who Says America’s Libraries Are Going Extinct?” published this February in the Pacific Standard, journalist Anna Clark wrote, “The best-kept secret about America’s libraries is that they are wildly, deeply, and incontrovertibly popular. They are as actively used as ever, if not more,” serving 96.4 percent of the population. Despite cutbacks in funding and reduced hours at some libraries, many libraries continue to increase their level of community services. (Most depend on a mix of public and private funding.) My local library is the setting for free tax preparation for senior citizens, English as a Second Language sessions, and com-
puter access and training; a basement area doubles as an afterschool program for middle-schoolers. For five cents a page, you can use their printer. After Hurricane Sandy, because the library was located in the one-tenth of the town that had power, for most of a week virtually every resident spent part or most of the day there to get warm, charge phones and computers, and get up-to-date storm-related information and resources. “Libraries are widely regarded as trusted public places of learning and are prized for being highly accessible,” says Heather Noonan, vice president of advocacy at the League of American Orchestras. “Orchestras have interactive, dynamic content to offer adult and young learners and are increasingly looking for new settings and partnerships that meet people where they are. In terms of public purpose and public service, it makes a great deal of sense to align the resources of orchestras with the accessibility of libraries.” For public libraries, a primary benefit of partnering with orchestras is that they can present programs or services that allow them to better serve their communities, one of their main missions. For orchestras, there are many benefits of partnering with libraries, including potential new audiences, free or low-cost performance space, and shared administrative costs with the library. But perhaps the biggest benefit is lowering barriers to access, something that popped up during conversations with nearly every person interviewed for this article. Music Talks and Storytimes
“As an orchestra it’s very easy to get into the schools; you go in and have an hour of
The Canton Symphony’s storytime program for preschool children takes place at Stark County District Libraries in Ohio.
25