Mapping Community Impact
L
ibraries are just one of many places orchestras are making an impact in their communities, but for an orchestra it can be a challenge to find a clear way to share this information with the public. In response, the League of American Orchestras offers mapping reports that provide a picture of the work orchestras are doing in their communities. A map created for the Toledo Symphony Orchestra (below) shows, via different symbols, the various educational, community, cultural, services, and corporate organizations— including libraries, represented by a brown diamond—that used the Toledo Symphony’s educational services from 2008 to 2012. All League member orchestras may request a free PDF of the basic mapping report, which entails a one-hour call to discuss the data collection process, and one-hour call to discuss the finished map. The basic mapping process and PDF of the finished product are available from the League free of charge, on a firstcome, first-served basis. A larger, more customized mapping report is available for $300 for member orchestra ($500 for nonmembers), following a detailed consultation with League staff. For more information contact Najean Lee in the League’s DC office.—JM
28
we get them back? We want to have more of these.’ The musicians enjoy doing this because it’s great to get to be that close to people, and to be able to be so interactive, so that they can ask questions, and even do requests.” Napoles notes that the Spokane Symphony “serves a very wide area—pretty much all of eastern Washington, north Idaho, even Montana and Canada.” Like
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra musicians Jun-Ching Lin (violin), Anastasia Agapova (violin), Reid Harris (viola), and Christopher Rex (cello) perform a free concert at TuckerReid H. Cofer Library in Tucker, Ga., as part of the ASO’s partnership with the DeKalb County Public Library.
Ahmad Mayes
at libraries throughout the year. For those events, ensembles representing each of the families of the orchestra—strings, brass, woodwinds, and percussion—head out on weekday evenings and weekend afternoons to five outlying libraries “on the fringe of Spokane,” says Janet Napoles, the orchestra’s education manager. Recently at a library in Deer Park, which is north of downtown Spokane, there were more than 30 people in attendance, says Napoles, ranging “from babies all the way up to senior citizens. The musicians share something about themselves, they talk about their instruments, they talk about the music, and they play. That recipe is just perfect. There’s something for everyone: you may have people who have never seen an instrument, you may have people who used to play. Everybody has their own perspective on what they’re getting out of this performance.” In Deer Park, she says, “This group of people had so many questions, and they were so excited that the trio—it was a string trio—ended up playing an extra fifteen minutes for them. I had a couple of people come up and ask me, ‘How can
many orchestra staff interviewed for this article, Napoles is quick to emphasize that the education programs held at libraries represent just a tiny fraction of their education offerings. In Spokane the orchestra partners with thirteen public schools, filling gaps as arts instruction has been cut from the curriculum. “Our community is economically rather low,” says Napoles, “so they really need the benefit of anything we can do for them.” And libraries? “They also want to serve their community—I don’t think it’s just about ‘come and get books.’ ” The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s chamber concerts at DeKalb County libraries come under the umbrella of the orchestra’s “Musicians and Communities” program, which consists of free performances of chamber music around Atlanta. It is not the first time the ASO has performed at libraries—they’ve had successful one-off concerts, which partly prompted them to roll out a series of concerts at seven libraries this season. Also a factor, says ASO Manager of Community Programs Ahmad Mayes, is that in DeKalb County the ASO “wasn’t really making much of an impact with our community engagement.” “We get a different audience for each library that we go to,” says Mayes. At October’s inaugural concert at the Avis G. Williams Library in Toco Hill, “We get a lot of the residents of that area, where there is a large Jewish population. And when we took it to the Wesley Chapel Branch in December, that audience was almost entirely African American.” The February concert in Chamblee was presented in Spanish—that part of DeKalb has a high concentration of
symphony
SPRING 2014