Opera Composing in the Schools!

As the Manager of Education for Chicago Opera Theater, I get the pleasure to work with amazing teaching artists and have fun creating alongside the students.   The entire month of January focused on COMPOSING melodies to the student’s lyrics.     Our composer in residence, Adam Busch states the following,

“What a FUN-tastic time we had at Calmeca, Clinton and Hampton schools!!  We laughed…a TON, and learned even more!!!  Using our ‘music meter’ ( an octave scale)–the kids were able to select notes, 1 through 8,  to create AMAZING melodies.  Their thought process was very clear.  They identified the story each lyric was telling, then matched the rise and fall of the notes with the emotions and key words of the lyric–even making edits for meter where necessary.  Unbelievably, though all of our laughing–we made full songs in just 3 short sessions—and all of them were totally different!  The funky “clothes were groovy” disco, to the demanding “Chocolate Milk song”—The cravings of “I can’t wait for dessert”, and the joys of “Pizza Day”.
What a great program–that now these kids will learn each other’s song AND perform them!!
Cheers to all the participants!!!!”