EDUCATION
Today’s young people should be writing for voice and for the instruments of the orchestra regardless of their background or training. They should know that composers look like they look and live where they live. The Playground Ensemble’s education programs nurture students’ creative voices, and shows them that music can be vibrant, adventurous, and relevant to the world they live in.
Current music standards emphasize creativity through composition and improvisation, but these skills have not traditionally been part of music teacher training. Playground Teaching Artists help teachers address these standards, offering in-class composition and improvisation activities, performances for school-wide assemblies (often of student-created music), and professional development opportunities.
The Playground’s education programs reach 3,000-5,000 students annually, and are committed to anti-racism and decolonization in music education by working with school music programs to reimagine teaching and learning music. In addition to highlighting artists who mirror students’ identities, we strive to amplify students’ voices by creating music with (not at) them that reflects and responds to the student's community, culture, and individual experiences of the world.
Musical instrument building at Denver Art Museum’s ‘Untitled’, credit: Eric Stephenson courtesy of DAM.
Visit our YouTube channel to see examples of our work with youth.
Check out our Young Composers Portal for curriculum and resources.
Our Programs
Soundpainting is a hand gesture based composition language for musicians, artists, dancers, and actors. In these sessions Playground teaching artists perform and demonstrate the gestures and by the end of the session students are leading the ensemble (and audience) in a performance. Soundpainting works as an all school assembly, a classroom visit, or as a multi visit residency.
Color, Shape, Sound combines visual art and sound in an immediate creative project. Traditional music notation is a set of instructions. In this program students will instead use colors, shapes, pictures, and text to communicate with the players and we perform their ideas on the spot.
Young Composers Playground is an innovative multi-week music composition program. Students write stories that are turned into chamber music. The program ends with a recorded performance for the entire student body, their families and their communities by the musicians of the Playground. These performances often incorporate student visual art and theater, and can involve classroom teachers across disciplines.
Our teaching materials are available to educators even if you can’t bring us to your school. Our Internet portal gives teachers access to the materials needed for composition and music creation activities that can be used individually or in sequence.
Found Sound Instrument Builder Playground Teaching Artists often build their own instruments for performances. In that tradition, we work with schools to design and implement programs around students’ own found sound creations. This program also works as a one time performance demonstration or a multi visit residency.
Musical Postcards is a variant of our Young Composers Playground. Young people compose short ‘musical postcards’ which are recorded and sent to young people in similar programs around the world.
Interesting Combinations Almost all of our programs can all be combined and scaled as needed for each classroom or school. For example it is very possible to do a Found Sound Soundpainting program, or Soundpainting Young Composers.
Music Technology Playground Teaching Artists have years of experience using and teaching a wide variety of music software from notation software to recording and creation apps (including video). We’d love to help you set up a lab, design a curriculum or just work more technology into the things you already do. We’d also love to incorporate it into all of the programs we’ve listed above. Let’s create together!
Professional Development, especially related to current music creation standards are a specialty of Playground Teaching Artists. Whether it is a district PD, and MTA meeting or your college NAfMe chapter, we would love to help you get started and support.
Is there a cost?
Yes, there is, but we have never turned down an education opportunity because of money. We often ask schools to meet us halfway. Our education partners in Friends of Chamber Music are often willing to help sponsor DPS visits, so contact us and let’s talk.
CONTACT
Young musicians explore Playground Ensemble’s ‘wrenchophone’ at one of the Sensory-Friendly events at Denver Art Museum. Photo courtesy Denver Art Museum.