This Year’s Strathmore Student Concerts Will Have New Feel

The Music Center at Strathmore, Flickr photo via Bill in DC

Before Strathmore’s brand new Music Center opened to the public, it opened to thousands of local elementary school students.

A decade later, the North Bethesda venue is celebrating 10 years of student concerts with a new music genre.

From Tuesday-Friday next week, Strathmore will shut down to make way for more than 11,000 MCPS 5th graders who will hear a new Blues concert thanks in part to nonprofit JazzReach. Until this year, the annual MCPS student concerts have exclusively featured classical music in partnership with the National Philharmonic:

The musicians onstage personify racial and gender diversity–Strathmore and MCPS were insistent that performers be inclusive and representative of the diversity in their community. The concerts were developed in close collaboration with MCPS music curriculum experts, addressing key concepts 5th graders will master during the school year. All elementary music teachers have pre-concert lessons to prepare students for their experience and strengthen their understanding of concepts contained in the program. The concerts will also illuminate for students how Blues is the foundation for genres more familiar to them, such as rock ‘n’ roll, gospel, and R&B.

The live multi-media educational program will fos­ter an appreciation of the great American Blues tradition. With the goal of teaching timely music curriculum concepts in a highly interactive and thrilling concert experience, the Strathmore Student Concerts include audience participation throughout, as well as supporting video content–live shots of musicians on stage and clips of famous Blues musicians performing.

Strathmore said the 5th grade student concerts require $124,000. Together with the 2nd grade concerts set for November, the total program costs $248,000 and is funded with help from the Strathmore Hall Foundation, GEICO, Jordan Kitt’s Muisc and the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation .

The concerts next week are set for 10:35 a.m. and 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and just 10:35 a.m. on Friday. Expect some school bus traffic in the area of the Music Center on Tuckerman Lane.

Flickr photo via Bill in DC

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