PAC, Jersey Shore Pops Continue Partnership with Youth Orchestra

COURT HOUSE – The Middle Township PAC has announced that the Atlantic Youth Orchestra will once again join forces with The Jersey Shore Pops for the coming 2013 season. This will be a continuation of a very successful partnership that started last year with the Pops orchestra hiring six of Atlantic Youth Orchestra’s outstanding members. The goal behind this collaboration is to prepare these students for a possible professional music career as well as draw a younger audience to the orchestral concerts.
Conductor Linda Gentille states, “We are honored to be able to work with such a talented group of young musicians and be able to help them prepare for a professional music career. This has been a mutually beneficial collaboration for both of our non-profit organizations.”
The Atlantic Youth Orchestra has one of the most successful youth orchestra’s in South Jersey and began this educational venture 24 years ago. The key staff members of the Atlantic Youth Orchestra are Sandra Johnstone Miller, Director, Susanne Di Vincenzo, Assistant Director and Concert Mistress for the Jersey Shore Pops, violinist, Susan Elsayed.
The Assistant Director of the Atlantic Youth Orchestra, Di Vincenzo continues, “The Atlantic Youth Orchestra began this partnership of placing capable students in a side-by-side situation with professionals in the Pops. It has been invaluable for the growth and development of the students in our Orchestra. This will help prepare them for a possible professional musical career in the future.”
One of the goals for The Jersey Shore Pops for 2013 is to collaborate with other non-profits to create outstanding memorable shows for the community. In addition to these concerts, there will be educational outreach workshops planned for the 2013/2014 season. This new educational component of the orchestra will be sponsored by various grants and with local business community partnerships. The Jersey Shore Pops is the newest orchestra in the southern part of the county and is now in its 4th successful annual season.
In the 1980s, according to data from the National Endowment for the Arts, the percentage of the classical music audience under 30 fell in half. And since then, the attendance of older age groups has also declined; until by 2008 (again according to NEA data) only people 65 and older go to classical performances as often as their counterparts did in the past.
Dr. Nick Holland, president of the orchestra comments, “Reaching out to younger audiences is always a challenge for classical and pops orchestras alike. With the partnership we have with Atlantic Youth Orchestra, we plan to highlight the young orchestra members in solos this season to try to draw a new segment of the community that is currently underserved in Cape May County. Nothing can inspire young people like seeing an awesome solo by one of their own peers.”
The conventional wisdom these days is that music education in the schools has declined, and therefore concerts have lost audiences, and therefore more energy needs to be put into school music programs so that we can build up audiences again. A lot of the emphasis is on teaching instruments. Some 74% of the orchestra audience, according to a Knight Foundation study based on six selected orchestras, has experience playing a musical instrument; therefore, let’s get instruments in the hands of school kids who will grow up to be the audience of the future.
“This column raises some provocative questions about what services orchestras should be offering to whom and why,” responded Jesse Rosen, president and CEO of the League of American Orchestras. “But having worked with orchestras my whole life and now as president of the League of American Orchestras, I think a few of the points have more complexity than they are accorded here. For example, there is the assumption that orchestras offer music education for the exclusive purpose of building audiences. That is simply not the case. Orchestras know that music education offers important intrinsic benefits to people and they are committed to delivering those benefits regardless of whether those people ever buy a ticket to a concert.”
Kay Aspell, managing director of the Middle Township Performing Arts Center has encouraged the pops orchestra to offer special discounted concert prices for students.
“I am so pleased that the Jersey Shore Pops has decided for the first time to offer “KONCERT KIDS” reduced ticket prices for students 8-18,” Aspell comments. “This is a great opportunity for the community to promote the arts to the younger audience. We are seeing more interest from families with children now than ever before!”
The Jersey Shore Pops Summer Concert Season which will feature members of the Atlantic Youth Orchestra begins June 29, 2013 at the Middle Township Performing Arts Center. For more information or to purchase tickets, please call 1-800-838-3006 or the Box Office at 609-463-1924. Or visit the website at www.JerseyShorePops.org