South End students honored with the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award

Ariyana Chrispin-Perkins, a violinist and a second grader at Joseph Hurley School; Jehan Diaz, a violist and a ninth grader at Boston Latin School; and Christian Casiano, a violinist and a sixth grader at St. Paul Choir School, all of the South End, are three of 44 Project STEP music students who were recently honored with the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. The award, presented to Mary Jaffee, executive director of the Project STEP program and also a resident of the South End, is the signature program of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and was presented at the White House.

Chosen from a national pool of more than 350 nominations and 50 finalists, Project STEP is one of 12 programs across the country to receive the award, which is the highest honor for such programs in the United States.

Project STEP (String Training and Education Program) was recognized for its rigorous, year-round classical string training program for under-represented minorities that invites them into a world of classical music that might not otherwise be available to them. Studies show long term music education programs, such as the one Project STEP provides, increases overall academic achievement, literacy and language abilities, communication, graduation rates, and college enrollment, as well as performance skills, and cultural awareness.

Prompted by concern over the historic underrepresentation of minority classical musicians, Project STEP was founded in 1982 by William Moyer, a now-retired Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) personnel manager. As the first program of its kind, Project STEP’s mission is to address this imbalance by identifying talented, motivated young minority students and providing them with access to the best string music training available. As of 2012, just five percent of orchestra musicians in the United States are African-American or Latino. Sixty percent of Project STEP graduates are now professionally involved in music.

Photo from left to right: Ariyana Chrispin-Perkins and Jehan Diaz. Missing from Photo is Christian Casiano

Credit: Mary Jaffee