Music Workshop Instrument Series -Primary Music Ed

A little over two years ago, Amy Richter started to conceptualize Music Workshop.  After volunteering for the Art Literacy program in her daughter’s school and seeing the reality of music leaving the schools in Oregon and on a national level, she decided to make a difference by creating Music Workshop, a supplemental music program free of charge to all public elementary schools.  Amy has an educational background in Music, Psychology and Music Therapy.  Throughout her childhood, Amy was an established musician and performer throughout Portland and Beaverton.  After working on the Music Workshop program with educators, designers, illustrators, editors, parents, animators, musicians and many more talented people, Music Workshop was able to launch its “Preview Series” in February of 2013.  Ten schools in Portland and Beaverton School districts participated in the “Preview Series” and were given two episodes to educate their students with 1. Jazz and 2. Birth of Rock n’ Roll.  Over a 3 1/2  month period, each of these schools presented each class in their school with both episodes, educating approx. 4500 students with the Music Workshop program.  Amy, along with many volunteers and talented artists have worked hard to raise the funding to create the program as well as multiple partnerships in the community with additional arts organizations to bring a more complete offering to all schools participating in the Music Workshop program.

Since our formation as an organization on July 1^st 2012, the following is a list of our major accomplishments to date:

1. Music Workshop has prepared 4 complete episode packages including a DVD, student Q&A sessions, student participation activities, all program instructions and additional educational materials.
2. Over 4500 students were educated with the Music Workshop program in Spring of 2013 – presenting them with 90+ minutes of Music Education 
3. To date 22 schools have provided verbal and/or contractual agreements to participate in the MW program in the 2013-2014 school year.
4. Partnerships with other prominent local and national music organizations (e.g. Young Audiences, The Snowman Foundation and the Oregon Music Hall of Fame) have been formed to create additional music education opportunities for our students.
5. To date over 90 volunteers and educational staff have been recruited and trained to help prepare and execute the program.
6. Approximately 40 training session have been held at 10 schools for volunteers and school staff.
7. In the 2013-2014 school year, MW will prepare and implement a total of 6 programs in 35-50 Oregon public elementary schools providing approximately 300 minutes of music education for each student.
8. Music Workshop was awarded “Volunteers of the Year” by the Beaverton Arts Commission in June of 2013.
9. $133,646 raised in financial and in-kind donations