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MSO to teach at Franklin this summer
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Ken Freed is the conductor of the Mankato Symphony Orchestra. File photo
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Mankato Symphony Orchestra is adopting Franklin this summer. File photo
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Symphony adopts school
MANKATO — Think of how kids learn their ABCs. They sing the
letters.
Picking up all 26 wouldn’t be so easy or fun for kids if music wasn’t incorporated into the learning. Many educators believe children are especially attune to sounds and rhythms, making music not only stimulating and entertainment, but also an important learning tool.
This is the thinking behind an upcoming program between the Mankato Symphony Orchestra and Franklin Elementary School’s summer Walkabout program. The summer-long program will introduce music to English language learning students as a way to improve literacy. The program is based on the principles of Music-in-Education National Consortium through the New England Conservatory.
Several grants have been received, and Joe Meidl of Music Mart is lending instruments.
“The short story is we’re going to use music to teach reading and math,” said Ken Freed, conductor of Mankato Symphony. “Musical literacy is decoding and phonemic awareness.”
The students will play instruments such as the violin, the recorder and drums. They will learn to read music, which is a kind of literacy, reading left to right and decoding symbols.
“Studies show that children who read music end up doing better academically,” Freed said. “It’s not just a violin for performance, it’s about learning to read.”
Freed, a handful of symphony members and interns from colleges and high schools, among others, will participate in the program. One of them is Alex Barnett of Mankato, who did the bass solos for Handel’s “Messiah” for the symphony and is a vocalist with the Minnesota Opera Chorus.
He’s working toward his master’s in vocal performance at Minnesota State University and taught for two years at Waterville-Elysian-Morristown school.
“I would teach kids some Spanish through music,” he said. “Like the days of the week.”
Among Barnett’s roles with the program, he will teach drumming to kids.
“I think it’s such an interesting and groundbreaking program that really needs to happen,” Barnett said. “This program is hopefully going to help to prove how valid and non-expendable music is in the schools.”
Evaluations will be made on the children’s reading skills at the start of the program and at the end to see how much progress has been made.
Two groups of students will participate. Not all of the students are from Franklin. They will also be coming from surrounding schools.
The first group of 20 students will participate for 10 weeks beginning June 15, ending Aug. 20, Barnett said. The second group will participate for five weeks, beginning July 20 and ending Aug. 20.
“Education is central to our core mission, especially with music being cut in the schools,” Freed said. “We have so many educators in the orchestra, and we are there to support their work.”
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The results are in.
Every year, we at The Free Press poll our readership. We want to know where you eat, where you take in a show, where you take the fam’ when they’re in town to show off the Mankato area to outsiders, and so on.
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Here are the 2009 Readers’ Choice Award winners in Activities and Entertainment. -
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The results are in.
Every year, we at The Free Press poll our readership. We want to know where you eat, where you take in a show, where you take the fam’ when they’re in town to show off the Mankato area to outsiders, and so on.
From Nov. 25 through Dec. 18, readers voted for their favorites in four categories: Activities and Entertainment; Food and Drinks; Services; and Shopping. You certainly had your opinions, and we like that.
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