Creating a Community Around Music
We build community through collaborative partnerships, resulting in more diverse representation from the region in which we work and live.
Our Community Partnership Programs (CPP) focus on children who either reside in or attend school in the City of Milwaukee. CPP musical genres include strings, jazz, steel pan, and bucket drumming. Some of the organizations we work with in CPP include Milwaukee Schools (including Milwaukee Public Schools), the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Milwaukee, and the Latino Arts Strings Program. Beyond the City of Milwaukee, we pioneered a beginning strings training program at Hawthorne Elementary School, a predominantly Latino public school in Waukesha.
We also offer more than 25 free concert performances to 5,000 children attending Milwaukee area schools, engaging them in a peer-to-peer performance by a MYSO ensemble.
At a Glance
Boys and Girls Clubs
Percussion and steel pan instruction is offered in summer at local Boys & Girls Clubs locations for students in grades 6-12.
Community Concerts
This program offers nearly 30 free concert performances annually to more than 5,000 area children, engaging them in a peer-to-peer performance by a MYSO ensemble. These concerts include an educational component, teaching student audiences about the featured ensemble’s instrumentation, composers, and history of music.
Milwaukee Schools
Our outreach program with Milwaukee schools is aimed at reaching a large number of students who are underserved in music education. Children in our Progressions program must either reside in or attend school in the City of Milwaukee. Over half of the students in our Calypso and Soca steel pan ensembles and our Jazz Studies programs either reside or attend school in the City of Milwaukee.
MYSO Scholars
A beginning string training program at Hawthorne Elementary School, a predominantly Latino public school in Waukesha, this program replicates the award-winning Progressions program and helps expand music training to underserved children.
- MYSO Scholars students rehearse twice weekly
- Students who participate are in grades 3-5
- Lead teacher: Ms. Carmen Kitts
Latino Arts Strings Program
MYSO and the Latino Arts Strings Program have established an ongoing creative collaboration which assists students participating in both programs.