Classroom Cantatas Model

Accompanying the 1990 premiere of Slavery Documents was a major outreach program involving 200 students from the Boston Public Schools and adults from urban community centers and churches. This was the Cantata Singers' first work in the schools, and the contacts and experience gained later inspired and aided the development of "Classroom Cantatas", the composition and performance program the organization has sponsored since 1992-93.

Built on a model of composition developed over several years, this year's program has been given a precise focus on African American history and slavery. We began this focus in a pilot program in the Mission Hill School, with a curriculum initiated at Primary Source's Summer Institute, "Black Yankees."

With the Slavery Documents Project, The Cantata Singers School Partnerships program has expanded into six schools: Jeremiah E. Burke High School, Fenway High School, Ralph Waldo Emerson Elementary School, Henry Dearborn Middle School, Boston Arts Academy, and Mission Hill School. The program also continues to maintain two strong School-Related Partnerships with the Max Warburg Courage Curriculum and Phyllis Wheatley Middle School.

Far more than simply offering a musical experience for inner city children, Classroom Cantatas combines music and academics. The program brings to life students' personal experience along with studies of history, literature and culture as they weave their own texts together with melody and rhythm to create their own cantatas. Students learn what it means to be a composer through the discovery and use of their own creative talent. Working in teams, they also learn the art of cooperation, and together, they learn to trust the process -- and one another -- as they rehearse and perform their finished compositions for an audience of their peers at the close of the program. This year, they will have the opportunity to perform their cantatas for T.J. Anderson and David Hoose in special performance classes.

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