Discovery Series
Celebrating 50 Years of the Mary Starling
In-School Education Program
Program Components | Volunteer! | Downloads | Multimedia | Partners
To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the Mary Starling In-School Education Program, the Winston-Salem Symphony is partnering with the African Library Project (ALP) and Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools (WS/FCS) to create a first-of-its-kind program through which students will learn about music, literacy and other cultures. Through its theme of storytelling and music, The Mary Starling Program will illuminate literacy both locally and globally.
The Mary Starling Program’s small ensemble performances for all 4th and 5th students in WS/FCS and full orchestra concert will be augmented by book drives at 43 elementary schools (to send 43,000 books to libraries in Africa), a short story competition and in-school integration complete with lesson plans, classroom activities and a companion CD of music. We hope you will join Winston-Salem Symphony this year in supporting the exciting work of the Mary Starling In-School Education Program and in celebrating 50 years of exceptional music education.
Program Components:
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Winston-Salem Symphony’s Mary Starling In-School Education Program
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Small Ensemble Performances
A core component of the Winston-Salem Symphony’s Mary Starling Program, ensembles of Symphony musicians perform for all 4th and 5th grade students in the WS/FC Schools.
Many People, One World
Full Orchestra ConcertsAnother core component of the Mary Starling Program
and the culmination of the small ensemble performances, a full orchestra concert for all 5th grade students in the WS/FC Schools featuring the Winston-Salem Symphony conducted by Assistant Conductor Matthew Troy.
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Book Drives
From January 4 to February 19, 2010, each of the 43 elementary schools in the WS/FC School system will participate in a book drive. The goal is for each school to collect 1,000 books to send to a sister school in Africa via the African Library Project. The books collected will be sorted, packed, and transported to New Orleans, Louisiana where they will then be shipped to Africa. In addition to the schools, books will be collected throughout Forsyth County at partner locations.
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Short Story Competition
The Winston-Salem Symphony will hold a short story competition for 5th grade students. Students participating in the competition will be asked to write a story inspired by Mussorgsky’s A Night on Bald Mountain which they will hear on the final concert. First, second and third place winners will receive a new violin package, private lessons for one year, and free tuition to Winston-Salem Symphony’s Premiere Strings Orchestra upon joining their school’s orchestra program. Other winners will receive gift certificates to a local bookstore.
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Teacher Packets and “Matt-cast”
As part of the Mary Starling Program, teacher packets are provided for all 4th and 5th grade music teachers, complete with lesson plans, classroom activities, and a companion CD of all of the music on the Full Orchestra Concert. In addition, “Matt-casts”, video segments featured on the WSS website about the 50th Anniversary program, will be available to augment the programming.
Volunteer Needs & Commitment
You can help! We will need over 100 On-Site Volunteers to help with the book drives. As an On-Site Volunteer you will commit to work 1-2 hours a week between January 4 and February 19. On-Site Volunteer teams of 2-3 people will be assigned to a specific school. Other volunteer opportunities are available between now and February 19.
On-Site Volunteer duties will include:
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Once Weekly school visits to collect and sort books and deliver to them to the central collection site
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Coordination of school donation site with the Media Specialist of your assigned school
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Attendance at one of the Mary Starling concerts on March 3 or 4, 2010
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Spreading the word about this great project to family, friends, neighbors and coworkers
Want to Volunteer or Donate?
Please contact:
Matthew Troy | who's this?
Assistant Conductor and Education Director
201 N. Broad Street, Suite 200
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
(336) 725-1035, ext. 209
mtroy@wssymphony.org
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Downloads
Other downloads appearing soon will include flyers, posters, and media information.
Multimedia
Click the play button below for a YouTube video about how the African Library Project is helping to change lives in Botswana. A slideshow of pictures from our bookdrives in Winston-Salem is forthcoming. For more information about the African Library Project, click here.
Partners
Winston-Salem Symphony Mary Starling In-School Education Program
The Mary Starling Program is the Winston-Salem Symphony’s single largest educational program in Forsyth County for students ages 9-12. Named in honor of a former Symphony Guild member with a passion for music education, the Mary Starling Program offers an introduction to orchestral music for the students of Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools through a combination of intimate ensemble performances culminating with a full orchestra concert. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the program will continue to reach all 4th and 5th students enrolled in the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools free of charge.
Through the Mary Starling program students learn to listen, analyze, and describe music; evaluate music and music performances; understand the relationships between music, the other arts, and content areas outside the arts; and understand music in relation to history and culture.
This experience not only uses visual and aural teaching methods, but is designed to be relevant and entertaining. The Mary Starling Full Orchestra Concert is often the first live symphonic experience for students and can inspire them to choose an instrument for the music performance program that begins in 6th grade.
As many symphony orchestras struggle to stay relevant in our constantly evolving society, the Winston-Salem Symphony has chosen to take the lead and institute an innovative educational program that will elicit social and cultural change on the local and global level. The theme for the 50th Anniversary year of the Mary Starling Program will be storytelling and music. In conjunction with this theme, the issue of literacy will be addressed through a book drive for the African Library Project at local schools, a short story competition with winners being awarded brand new violins, and lessons for an entire school year with WSS musicians, and a concert featuring the great stories in classical music.
The mission of the African Library Project is to increase literacy in Africa by creating and improving small libraries.
In the United States, volunteers collect, sort, and ship gently used books to specific African communities. They organize book drives in local schools and neighborhoods and raise modest funds to ship the books to the African Library Project’s African partners.
In Africa, the partners range from Peace Corps volunteers to school administrators. They receive the books and organize them into free lending libraries to serve the community. Along the way, U.S. donors learn about Africa and develop connections to the people in the recipient communities.
Specifically, books collected in our drive will go to sister schools in Botswana. Botswana has made steady development gains since independence, moving from a lower-rung, least developed country to an upper middle income country in just over two decades, and broadening access to basic services against the major difficulties of delivery presented by a small population (slightly under 2 million), sparsely distributed over a country the size of France or Kenya.
The most spectacular area of success has been in education, where universal access to the first 10 years of schooling is now assured for boys and girls alike. To learn more about the country, click here.
Winston-Salem / Forsyth County Schools
www.wsfcs.k12.nc.us
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools formed in 1963 with the merger of the Winston-Salem and Forsyth County school systems. It is the fifth-largest system in North Carolina and the 83rd largest in the nation.