Browsing by Author "Kinsey, Brandon, 1990-"

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Symphony orchestra education programs in the community : a qualitative case study assessing student understanding from an arts-integrated program.
(2023-12) Kinsey, Brandon, 1990-; Davis, Brenda K., 1971-
Scholars identify symphony orchestra education programs as a solution to numerous difficulties facing symphony orchestra organizations today. Symphonies have struggled through financial hardship for a century, and capturing necessary external funding requires navigating a complex financial landscape. Additional difficulties include continually declining audience sizes and engagement due to changing cultural values. Scholars suggest that symphony education programs can help combat these issues by providing community relevance through education services. While scholars consider symphony education programs a possible solution to organizational difficulties, numerous hurdles inhibit program success. Examples include challenges creating interdisciplinary or arts-integrated curriculums and difficulties evaluating existing programs in the nonprofit space. While existing literature covers interdisciplinary curriculums and nonprofit evaluation, a discussion of their application to symphony orchestra education programs is lacking. Literature dedicated to symphony education programs overall is strikingly minimal. This study used a qualitative single case embedded design to assess the learning outcomes of a community-relevant arts-integrated education program created by a tier-one symphony orchestra in the Midwest. There were 15 student participants and two music teacher participants from two Midwest elementary schools, one suburban and one rural. Interviews and student worksheets analysis explored disciplinary grounded understanding in music and science as independent disciplines and evidence of advanced understanding as a product of combining disciplines. Mansilla and Duraising’s (2007) targeted assessment of students’ interdisciplinary student work informed the data collection and analysis processes. The results indicated that disciplinary grounding in music presented itself in students’ ability to communicate and demonstrate that music is organized, communicates personality and character, communicates narrative, and communicates emotion. Students presented disciplinary grounding in science by communicating that wolves are endangered, misunderstood, and various additional scientific facts. Two students demonstrated advanced understanding as a result of combining disciplines. The results showed that symphonies can successfully create arts-integrated curriculums and connect to their community through the education system. This study began to address the gap in literature dedicated to symphony education programs, but future research is still needed to explore additional education program outcomes and their benefit to the larger symphony organization.