When the Monumental Brass Quintet of Washington, DC, arrived at St. Michaels and Cambridge-South Dorchester High Schools’ auditoriums on April 20, to play for a combined 600 elementary school students, excitement filled the room.  Children were having a hard time not swaying in their seats as the familiar Ragtime and classical pieces were played.  Chesapeake Chamber Music’s YouthReach Program sponsored the programs this year in an effort to reach a larger number of schoolchildren than was possible at the Chesapeake Chamber Music Family Concert, held during the CCM Festival each June.  The purpose of the YouthReach concerts over the years has been to feature world-class musicians demonstrating and discussing their instruments and their music in a child-friendly concert.  According to Don Buxton, CCM Executive Director, “The longer-term goal of the program is to awaken young people’s interest in, and ultimately their love for, the classical music art form.”

This year’s concert at the new St. Michaels Elementary-High Auditorium was particularly rewarding. Students got to hear firsthand the amazing acoustics of the new facility as the brass instruments were played.

In addition to the YouthReach concerts, the YouthReach Program provides elementary school children in Talbot County, MD with a beginning string music experience called “First Strings,” as well as the “Presto!” Program, an afterschool program of small group classes of five to eight students who have graduated from the “First Strings” program. Over 600 elementary school children have taken part in the program.

Pictured left to right Makenzie Seldon, a fifth grader, and Izaiah Castro, a third grader, students at St. Michaels Elementary School, with members of Monumental Brass Quintet from Washington, DC.  The group recently visited the school as part of Chesapeake Chamber Music’s YouthReach Program.

Pictured are members of Monumental Brass Quintet from Washington, DC, demonstrating homemade instruments to students at St. Michaels Elementary School, as part of Chesapeake Chamber Music’s YouthReach Program.