Arts Activities Support
ACHF Arts Access
At least 300 people will have attended performances by youth that are mentored by 50 adult artists from Hopewell Orchestras and the Minnesota Sinfonia. The Hopewell Orchestra will advance in American String Teachers Association standards by one level and 75% of Hopewell Students being mentored by the Minnesota Sinfonia will indicate their playing ability was enhanced due to this partnership. Hopewell Music will evaluate the project's success in building audience through audience counts at Hopewell Orchestra concerts during the project period. Hopewell will survey its Orchestra students at the end of the project and will use The American String Teacher Association Evaluation Standards at the beginning and end of the project period to evaluate the advancement of the Orchestra.
The most significant outcome is the increased confidence of our orchestra members. The Sinfonia musicians' helped players feel confident in their abilities which resulted in great improvement of the ensemble. As a result, orchestra members have shown pride in the group which is shown by their inviting more friends and family to concerts and to join the ensembles. The Hopewell Orchestra Advancement Project exceeded all of our artistic goals. Our primary goal was to increase the playing ability and level of repertoire of the orchestras by one level over the course of 1 year using the standards of the American String Teacher Association and the National School Orchestra Association. We performed 5 pieces on our first concert at an average level of 2.6. Our second concert was a turning point in which we drastically cut the number of pieces we worked on, but raised the average level of the music from 2.6 to 4. By our final concert we went back to a more robust program and performed 5 pieces at an average level of 4.2. We exceeded our goal by .6 Our second goal was to that 75% of orchestra members mentored achieved felt their playing ability enhanced by the program. When given an anonymous survey in June, 100% of the orchestra members felt their playing ability was enhanced by the Orchestra Advancement Project. The mentors from the Sinfonia made a significant impact because they both helped the orchestra members individually and as an ensemble. Because the overall sound of the group improved, the orchestra members felt more confident as musicians. The Sinfonia members built relationships with Hopewell musicians by offering extra time, working one-on-one with struggling players, and donating instruments to help build the orchestra. The Hopewell Community Orchestra has more room to grow in our audience development. Although we met our goals numerically, we were actually hoping to exceed our goals and build a more diverse audience base at the concerts held in our home location. The Hopewell Orchestral Advancement Project is helping us improve the quality of our performances which is helping us to build our audience base. Because of the success of our final concert, we were invited to perform for the grand opening celebration of the Webber Library. This performance proved to be a great opportunity for reaching new audiences and building community partnerships. We discovered that as the skills and playing level increased, we needed more time for preparation, this proved both a strength and a challenge. Planning concerts and preparing rehearsals took more time as the year progressed because we were able to work at a higher level of detail. Orchestra members found they needed to put more time and thought in practicing at home. In the end, everyone put more time and effort in the project but the results were outstanding. The only possible change we would consider is to partner with additional organizations to benefit from their expertise. We reached our intended community, but plan to be intentional in diversifying our reach in the future. The estimated population benefiting from our program matched the actual population served. Since the start of this program we have gained 5 new orchestra members a 41% increase in participation. The age range of the new members ranged from 7-59. Although the ethnic demographics did not change dramatically, continuing the current rate of growth stands to further diversify our ensemble. Accessibility is intrinsic to the structure of our program, but one example of how we met our goal of accessibility and the strength of the partnership involves one our new members who is a cellist. She relies on public transportation, but cannot transport a large instrument safely on the bus so we for her to borrow one of the Hopewell cellos at no cost. Keeping a cello for her on-site allowed her to participate consistently in orchestra. Unfortunately, we only have student-level instruments to loan, but one of the cellists in the Sinfonia heard her story, recognized her skills and donated a higher quality cello for her to use.
Other, local or private