15,000 Students To Participate In LINK UP At Carnegie Hall

For 34 seasons, Carnegie Hall's Link Up music education program has facilitated deeper connections between the concert hall and the classroom through an instrument-focused curriculum that culminates with students performing with a professional orchestra from their seats, often marking the first time many students will have set foot in a concert hall. The nearly 15,000 New York City-area students in grades 3-5 who participate in this program will travel to Carnegie Hall to take part in one of six concerts in Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage on Tuesday, May 21, Wednesday, May 22, and Thursday, May 23 at 10:15 and 11:45 a.m.

The theme of this year's concerts is Link Up: The Orchestra Moves-an interactive program developed by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute that explores how composers use the orchestra to create musical movement. Throughout the school year, students analyze and interpret how music moves through meter, melodic patterns, and expressive qualities in their classrooms. At the end of the year, they put their knowledge into practice during the culminating performances of The Orchestra Moves at Carnegie Hall. The concert program, hosted by teaching artist and composer Thomas Cabaniss, features Rossen Milanov conducting the Link Up Orchestra, which is made up of current fellows and alumni of Ensemble Connect as well as other dynamic performers and music educators, all of whom reflect the vibrant makeup of New York City. The program also welcomes elementary school students from PS 254K, PS 971, and PS 165Q to perform onstage as part of the orchestra, and features a student composition screened onstage from PS 295. The Orchestra Moves highlights works by Beethoven, Márquez, and Bizet, among others, along with an interactive world premiere performance of a new work by Puerto Rican-born composer Angélica Negrón (commissioned by Carnegie Hall as part of its 125 Commissions Project), who will make an appearance in all six performances. To experience Link Up in action, view this video.

The longest-running education program of Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute (WMI), Link Up provides an opportunity for its participants to join the orchestra by teaching them to sing and play an instrument in the classroom. In addition to students in New York, young people across the country and around the world are also taking part in Link Up. Partner orchestras can utilize any of the program materials created by Carnegie Hall-including teacher guides, student materials, concert scripts, and concert visuals-for free as they work with schools in their own communities. Link Up welcomes 15 new partners this year from across the United States, along with new partners in Colombia and Spain.

The Link Up programs are now comprised of four distinctive, year-long curricula: The Orchestra Moves (exploring movement within music), The Orchestra Sings (exploring melody), The Orchestra Rocks (exploring rhythm), and The Orchestra Swings (exploring the intersection of classical music and jazz). Link Up materials are designed for use in classrooms throughout the school year, helping students prepare to take part in a culminating concert by their local orchestra at which they sing, play the recorder, or play the violin with the orchestra from their seats.

Link Up curricula and program materials are now being shared at no cost with more than 110 orchestras across the country from Alaska to Florida, as well as in Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Japan, Kenya, and Spain, serving more than 450,000 students and teachers around the world. As expansion continues, the program's materials have been translated into several languages, including Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish and Japanese.

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