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Phila. After-School Classical Music Program Receives $300K for its Second Year
The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge awards PYO’s Tune Up Philly $150,000; Carole Haas Gravagno to match donation.
Philadelphia, PA – May 9, 2011. (Download PDF) Maestro Louis Scaglione, President and Music Director of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization (PYO) today announced that PYO’s Tune Up Philly program will receive $300,000, allowing the Southwest Philadelphia after-school classical music education program to run through the 2011/2012 school year, its second.
On May 9, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation announced that Philadelphia Youth Orchestra’s Tune Up Philly is one of several recipients of The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge, which is a $9 million initiative supporting innovative projects that inspire and enrich Philadelphia’s communities. Tune Up Philly will receive $150,000 from Knight Foundation. PYO Board of Trustees Member, Carole Haas Gravagno, who funded year one of Tune Up Philly through a generous matching grant, will match the donation from Knight Foundation.
“The announcement of the Knight Foundation’s generosity is coupled with another’s benevolent support. It is because of Mrs. Carole Haas Gravagno that PYO was able to launch Tune Up Philly in 2010 and thanks to her continued support with the Knight Foundation’s investment, we have funds for the second year of the program,” said Maestro Louis Scaglione of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization.
"A deep appreciation for the arts starts early. The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra's program will help foster it and ensure that a love for music lives on in future generations,” said Dennis Scholl, Knight Foundation’s vice president/arts.
Tune Up Philly is the new, after-school musical education program of the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization at St. Francis de Sales School in southwest Philadelphia designed to nurture urban children living in challenging social and economic conditions by keeping them engaged in success through weekday out-of-school hour’s musical instruction. Most of the 80 elementary school students in Tune Up Philly did not previously study a music instrument. The program’s inaugural year commenced in September 2010 and will run through July 2011, offering free concerts to the public. Instructed by a dozen local, professional teaching artists, the students in Tune Up Philly train five days a week with concentrations in woodwind, brass, strings and percussion instruments, and choral and general music education. Tune Up Philly believes that music education is a powerful vehicle for children to master skills that will enable them to acquire valuable tools for cooperative learning, teamwork, academic success and self-esteem. In the first year of the program, there has been an outpouring of support from the Greater Philadelphia region, which allows the program to continue and grow.
“Tune Up Philly is a vehicle for social change, benefitting the children and larger community in Southwest Philadelphia. Now, Knight Foundation joins Mrs. Carole Haas Gravagno and other private individuals across the Tri-State region in supporting the 80 elementary school students in Tune Up Philly as they grow and learn and excel,” said Tune Up Philly’s Director, Stanford Thompson. “Our immense gratitude to the Knight Foundation for allowing the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra to continue to provide the Tune Up Philly program to children and a community who have come to depend upon it because of its countless positive advantages. On behalf of all of the students, teachers and parents: thank you.” Knight Foundation hosted an awards ceremony at The Philadelphia Museum of Art on May 9th to honor all of the recipients of the The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s Knight Arts Challenge.
About the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra: Founded in 1939, the Philadelphia Youth Orchestra (PYO) is one of the nation’s oldest classical music training and orchestra performance programs for gifted and talented students from the Tri-State region. Lead by Maestro Louis Scaglione, PYO’s companion ensembles include the Philadelphia Young Artists Orchestra (PYAO), formed in 1996; Bravo Brass, added to the program in 2003; Philadelphia Region Youth String Music (PRYSM) created in 2007; and the Musicopia String Orchestra partnership, which began in 2008. Young musicians from ages six through 21 are selected by competition audition and have represented the United States on five continents. The Philadelphia Youth Orchestra organization offers classical musical performances to the Greater Philadelphia region each year and supports musical education to children from Philadelphia’s more challenging neighborhoods through its newest after-school program launched in 2010, Tune Up Philly.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation: The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation promotes journalism excellence world-wide and invests in the vitality of communications in the United States where the Knight brothers once owned newspapers. Knight Foundation invests in ideas and projects that can lead to transformational change.
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