Fort Collins Symphony

Youth Educational Student Concerts

Since 1952, the FCSO has provided a series of educational concerts at the Fort Collins Lincoln Center for all 4th and 6th grade students in the Poudre School District and area private schools. The FCSO schedules its concerts to reinforce the choices the sixth graders will have in selecting their courses for seventh grade, one of which may be beginning orchestra.

The music for this concert is selected in cooperation with the Poudre School District Music Memory Program and KUNC-FM, which uses public radio and classroom activities to introduce young people to their musical heritage. Teachers are given tapes of the music, which will be performed, early in the school year, so they can prepare students for the performance and explore interdisciplinary connections to visual art, literature and history, among others.

GRANT FUNDS YOUTH EDUCATION CONCERT SERIES

The Fort Collins Symphony recently received a $20,000 grant from the Bohemian Foundation to fund a series of Youth Education Concerts for fourth, sixth, and now eighth graders throughout Fort Collins public, private, and home schools. This is at least the sixth year of funding from the Foundation.
The concert series was established more than 50 years ago to expose fourth and sixth graders to a professional symphonic orchestra. Because of its success, this year's program will be expanded to include 2000 eighth graders.
The special spring concert for eighth graders, Heroes and Human Rights, will focus on works that have been inspired by world events: Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 will address the Cold War, Pennderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima, Schwanter's the New Morning for the World about Martin Luther King and Hillary Tan's The Open Field about Tienamen Square.
'It's our hope that the modeling of positive relationships and the promotion of positive messages about music and social interaction will enable young people to become more effective leaders in our community,' said Marta Farrell, Executive Director of the Fort Collins Symphony.