The Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the Dudamel Orchestra of the Conservatory Lab Charter School will perform together in a free family concert on July 24th at the DCR’s Hatch Shell. The event, “For the Ages: A Family Guide to the Orchestra”, will begin at 7 pm, with security entrances opening at 5 pm. Representatives from arts organizations across the region, organized by MASSCreative, will be on hand to celebrate the role that creativity plays in all our lives.
The concert will feature a presentation of the Charles Ansbacher Music for All Award to Dr. José Antonio Abreu, founder of the transformative arts and education program El Sistema in Venezuela. It is this program which is now the core of teaching at the Conservatory Lab Charter School. Accepting the award will be Bolivia Bottome, Director of Institutional Development and International Relations for Dr. Abreu’s program.
The program grew out of a collaboration between the orchestra and the Conservatory Lab Charter School that has lasted all year. Michael Gandolfi, Chair of the Composition Department at the New England Conservatory of Music, worked with the youngsters at the school to create a new work, The Queen and the Conjurer, that premiered at Dorchester’s Strand Theatre in May in front of an audience of 1,000 Boston public, private, and parochial school students. After the performance a young student from the Conservatory Lab said, “I felt good playing for other schools, because it was sort of like saying 'we can do it, you guys can do it too; why don't you give it a try?'”
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“This is a night to reflect on the role that art plays in all our lives, especially our young people,” said Jeff Makholm, Chairperson of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra. “The collaboration between the Landmarks Orchestra and the Conservatory Lab Charter School has been extraordinarily successful and we are grateful to the National Endowment for the Arts, the Mabel Louise Riley Foundation, the Lynch Foundation, and the Free for All Concert Fund for making it possible.”
The concert itself will include Perpetuum Mobile (Strauss Jr.), Lord of the Rings Symphonic Suite, excerpt (Shore) played by the Conservatory Lab Charter School, The Queen and the Conjurer (Gandolfi), Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra (Britten), and following intermission Symphony No. 1 (Brahms).played by the Landmarks Orchestra.
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About Boston Landmarks Orchestra
The Boston Landmarks Orchestra, conducted by its music director Christopher Wilkins, is a professional orchestra that provides free concerts in the summer that bring together Boston’s diverse communities through the common language of music. It performs at the DCR’s Hatch Shell on Wednesday nights in July and August and in neighborhoods of Greater Boston throughout the summer.
About Conservatory Lab Charter School
Founded in 1999 by a team of music educators, researchers and administrators from the New England Conservatory of Music, the Conservatory Lab Charter School was established to discover the effects of music on children’s social and cognitive development. The mission of Conservatory Lab is to help all students achieve academic, creative, and social success by providing a music-infused curriculum, and an opportunity to become educated music listeners and music performers.
About El Sistema
El Sistema is a unique program designed to effect social change and nurture promising futures for underserved communities through intensive, ensemble-focused music education. El Sistema was founded in 1975 by José Antonio Abreu in Venezuela and has become a hugely successful program that teaches approximately 400,000 children and boasts some 60 children’s orchestras, 200 youth orchestras, 30 professional adult orchestras, and dozens of choruses. The program was incorporated into the Conservatory Lab Charter School in September 2010 and has since greatly strengthened the musical core of the school.
About MASSCreative
Supported in part by generous contributions from The Boston Foundation and Hunt Alternatives Fund, MASSCreative works with creative leaders, working artists, arts educators and arts and cultural supporters to empower creative organizations and the public with a powerful voice to advocate for the resources and attention necessary to build vibrant, connected, and creative communities.
