Celebrating art and music.

As part of its centennial celebration, Carnegie Hall presented a unique educational outreach activity in collaboration with Learning Through Art, an independent, non-profit organization affiliated with the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. An exciting twenty-two week, multi-disciplinary arts education initiative took place in seven schools located in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island.

For 100 years, Carnegie Hall has set a standard by which concert halls are judged. Eminent performers have premiered there as well as composers from many cultures. Early jazz debuted at the hall in 1912 with a ragtime concert in 1933; folk singing was featured. Important speakers at Carnegie Hall included Mark Twain, Booker T. Washington, Albert Einstein and Amelia Earhart.

Drawing on the rich heritage of Carnegie Hall, the students of P.S. 124 in Manhattan, with Learning Through Art artist-in-residence Marion Lange, employed various techniques to explore immigration and the culture of New York in one workshop. The students interviewed a person who immigrated to the United States. They invented headgear, costumes and accessories, made Styrofoam prints and painted portraits to piece together a more complete picture of that person.

Russia, music and Carnegie Hall have been connected since its gala opening one hundred years ago when Pyotr Tchaikovsky came to America to conduct several of his works. The sixth graders at P. S. 84 explored Russia's culture, music and art while studying Russia in their social studies classes. Each student selected a Russian republic to research, designed a visual image representing that state and painted the image on a constructed three-dimensional map of the U.S.S.R.

Eight hundred fourth, fifth and sixth graders in all were introduced to classical music, a mode of the arts particularly untouched by school-age children. In classrooms throughout New York, Learning Through Art's professional artists, musicians and performers used the cultural history and musical heritage of Carnegie Hall as a means to explore the relationships among the visual, literary and musical arts. Historical tours of Carnegie Hall, focusing on architectural design and sound quality, brought the students backstage for a closer look. Informal in-school concerts and main hall concerts engaged the students in discussions about the families of instruments and texture in music. The students developed valuable listening skills in the process. Reading and writing projects encouraged reflective thinking about art and music, while improving comprehension skills.

The works created were presented at an exhibition at City Gallery, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs called Carnegie Hall Turns 100: An Exhibition Through the Eyes of Children.

Deborah S. Uyar is Assistant to the Executive Director, Learning Through Art, The Guggenheim Museum, New York, N.Y.

A poster commemorating Carnegie Hall's 100th anniversary is available From Learning Through Art for $20 (includes postage and handling). For more information call Debbie: [phone] or [phone].