Take 5 for Music

Imagine 60,000 young people listening to classical music each day.

With the philosophy of "Every Child, Every Life" our goal is to bring classical music to every student in San Diego. Last year nearly 6,000 students in grades 3-6 participated in Music Memory: a fun, interactive curriculum that focuses on 16 pieces of music each year and concludes with a county-wide Music Bee. But with nearly 60,000 elementary students enrolled in the San Diego Unified School District, we have a lot of work to do!

"Take 5 for Music" is in the beta stage right now, having tested the program on 20 elementary schools this past spring. Take 5 provides five minutes of daily listening to great classical music masterpieces. You don't need to know how to play the clarinet to participate, students just need a good set of ears and a quiet listening environment. The music does all the rest.

Classrooms filled with Bach and Mozart each day? What a wonderful thing that would be.

Paige Satter
Artistic Administrator & Education/Outreach Coordinator

Notes from Interlochen

I'm typing from a bucolic setting by the lake next to my cabin at Interlochen where I'm Director of Orchestras during the summer. After two weeks of young audiences screaming and cheering for Ives, Mozart and Respighi, it gives me pause to think, "if it can happen here, can it work in the commercial/professional world?" Of course, my belief is that it can.

The great thing about youth is that they don't have expectations. If you can present an experience that reflects the energy and imagination that they expect, they'll embrace just about anything...including classical music.

I think Nova is heading boldly in the right direction. It's a course that dares to accomplish the impossible. We actually believe that the general public can become excited over beautiful art if it's presented in a way that is as fresh and imaginative as anything they can find in the world of leisure and entertainment. Usually these two worlds seem at odds, but Mozart (and Verdi and others) understood how to blend these seemingly disparate tastes. We're just doing this for our own own generation!

Jung-Ho Pak

Artistic director and conductor

Summer Vacation for Orchestra Nova! Not!!

The season has ended. So, you haven't heard much from Orchestra Nova for a month or so. No concerts in the summer - the staff must be enjoying life at the beach. Right? Wrong!!

Jung-Ho's been to South Korea for a conducting stint and he's spending the remainder of the summer at the world-renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts in Michigan where he leads all orchestral activities. But I can attest to the fact that he's spending lots of creative thinking time about how we can make Orchestra Nova's next season the best ever - the e-mails and phone calls are flying across the miles!

Marketing is in full swing - the Inspire magazine, market research, new programs, etc. etc. - but what I want to mention today are the 520 completed surveys that our May concert guests returned to us. We were thrilled with the response rate of returns and with the high overall rating for "the Orchestra Nova experience" (4.5 average on a scale of 1-5, 5 being the highest). However, what we were most interested in were the fantastic suggestions we received for making it even better. We are holding weekly staff meetings to develop and implement actions plans to address issues and suggestions in the feedback. WE DO CARE!

We are planning to conduct focus groups in September to continue our market research - our first focus group will be with Young Professionals. If you're interested in participating, send me an e-mail at: marketing@orchestranova.org.

Stay tuned - you'll be hearing from other staff members about their activities.

And, I'll be sharing some stories with you as we go along too!

Check out our web site: www.orchestranova.org