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OrchKids is an after-school program designed to effect social change and nurture promising futures for youth in Baltimore City’s low-income neighborhoods. In collaboration with a broad array of community partners, the BSO’s OrchKids program will provide music education, instruments and mentorship to Baltimore’s neediest youngsters.

Under Music Director Marin Alsop’s artistic leadership and direction, OrchKids is a cornerstone of the BSO’s vision to expand the Orchestra’s relevance within the city’s broad and diverse community. To effectively implement OrchKids and to create a network of community support, the BSO is undertaking the program in partnership with several key local organizations, including the Baltimore City Public School System, The Peabody Institute, Arts Everyday, Baltimore School for the Arts and The Family League. Each partner organization will contribute its own expertise and unique resources to the program.

Funding for the planning phase and first year of OrchKids is made possible in part through the generous support of Robert E. Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker. Music Director Marin Alsop has committed $100,000, structured as a four-to-one matching gift, intended to motivate and inspire others in the community to provide additional support to sustain the OrchKids program through the critical first few years of implementation and growth.

Click here  for the OrchKids press kit and press release.

Click here to listen to interviews and view local media coverage of this initiative.

Tuned-In
Read Orchkids Program Manager Dan Trahey's blog from his trip to Venezuela in June 2009 to learn more about the pedagogy behind El Sistema, the orchestral training program that has changed the lives of thousands of youth in Venezuela's most impoverished areas.  In addition to the BSO's ORCHkids Program, El Sistema has inspired similar programs around the world. 

Music Director Marin Alsop                Dr. Andres Alonso, CEO of 
                                                             Baltimore City Public School System

Chorus students at Harriet
                   Tubman Elementary School                   

From left: Michael Bronfein, BSO Board of Directors Chairman;
Dr. Andres Alonso, CEO of Baltimore City Public School System; Yvonne
Cunion, Harriet Tubman E.S. Principal; Marin Alsop, BSO Music
Director; Robert Meyerhoff and Rheda Becker, OrchKids donors.

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