New Initiatives

Grant Award from the National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts recently announced its 2012 grant recipients, and the Metropolitan Opera Guild emerged as one of few organizations across the country to receive 100% of their grant request. The $75,000 award will allow the Guild to expand its Students Compose Opera program to schools in New Jersey and Boston, while also serving more students throughout New York.

The NEA-funded initiative will place Guild Artists in 10 elementary schools across the three states to provide weekly arts instruction and teacher professional development. In these year-long residencies, students develop creativity, communication, and composition skills as they create their own music dramas based on stories, poems, or historical events from classroom curriculum. Students learn to write libretto, compose music, develop staging, and perform their work.

All participating students also have opportunities to attend live performances by the Metropolitan Opera, either at Lincoln Center or through Live in HD transmissions in local theaters.

Year-long professional development will be a core component of the program. Classroom teachers will learn to facilitate opera-based learning with students through participation in week-long summer workshops, quarterly Opera Learning Network gatherings, and one-on-one coaching from Guild Artists.

Collaboration with Hastings College
As part of its commitment to preparing students for careers in multi-cultural urban education, Hastings College (a private liberal arts school in Nebraska) is partnering with the Metropolitan Opera Guild to provide undergraduate students with field study opportunities in New York City public schools. Professors and students from the College’s Department of Music and Department of Teacher Education will first attend the Guild’s Opera Learning Network Summer Intensive in July 2012 as an introduction to opera-based learning. The summer training will be complemented by field practice in Hastings public schools throughout Fall 2012, followed by a return to New York in January 2013. The January field study in NYC will allow Hastings students to observe opera-based instruction in urban classrooms, as well as provide them with opportunities to work alongside Guild Artists. The Guild is proud to serve as a resource for Hastings collegiates’ pre-service training.

International Partnership with Centro CREO Arte in Quito, Ecuador
The Metropolitan Opera Guild is pleased to announce its participation in Project CREO, an initiative that uses the arts to offer homeless and underserved youth in Quito, Ecuador opportunities to create and to believe in themselves as voices of worth and as potential agents of change. Project CREO (projectcreo.com) is a partnership between Arts Interface, the CRISFE Foundation, the Centro CREO Arte, and the Metropolitan Opera Guild.

This summer, the Guild is providing intensive professional development in opera-based teaching and learning to four Project CREO teaching artists. The two-week training will include involvement in the August Opera Learning Network Summer Intensive, followed by participation in the Guild’s annual artist training, where the artists from Ecuador will have opportunities to explore promising practices in arts education alongside New York City-based Guild Artists.

The Guild is honored to contribute to arts education globally, while gaining valuable insight on the application of opera-based learning in other cultural contexts.