Posted April 5, 2022
DAYTON, OH (April 5, 2022) – On Wednesday, April 13, 2022 at 9:45 a.m. at the Schuster Center, over 500 students in grades 6 through 12 from 15 schools across the Miami Valley will attend the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance’s Concert for Middle and High School Students, under the direction of Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra Artistic Director and Conductor Neal Gittleman.
This concert for middle and high school students is the second ever of its kind for the DPAA, with the last middle and high schools being held in January 2020 before the Covid-19 pandemic. The DPAA is thrilled to welcome students back to the theatre for the thrill of live music in the beautiful, state-of-the-art Schuster Center. The concert is also open to the public.
Students at the middle school and high school ages crave powerful, gripping experiences. No experience is more powerful than hearing a great orchestra perform great music live. This DPAA concert is aimed at providing an engaging musical experience, deepening students’ critical thinking, and enhancing classroom discussions after the performance.
This second ever Middle and High School Concert is entitled “Beyond the Years: Paul Laurence Dunbar’s World.” The Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra celebrates 150 years since the birth of Paul Laurence Dunbar, acclaimed African American poet born in Dayton, Ohio. The concert follows a timeline of Dunbar’s life and uses music, student narrators, and poetry recitation to tell his story. This performance features Professor Herbert Woodward Martin, University of Dayton Professor Emeritus, reciting selected works. The program will include famous works by Bizet, Borodin, Greig, Dvořák, Still, Bolcom, and Nielsen.
This Concert for Middle and High School Student is supported by Kettering Health, DPAA’s Learning Programs Sponsor.
Each year the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance is proud to reach almost 60,000 children and their families through concerts, in-school presentations, and participatory programs. For more information on these programs aimed at providing unique opportunities for children and their families to access the arts in the greater Dayton area, visit www.daytonperformingarts.org/education.
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About the Dayton Performing Arts Alliance
The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance (DPAA) was formed in July 2012 as the result of a groundbreaking and innovative merger between the Dayton Ballet, the Dayton Opera, and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. Together, they are the largest performing arts organization in the greater Dayton community, with a mission to be the community’s indispensable source for traditional, diverse and innovative experiences in ballet, opera, and orchestral music. The vision of the DPAA is to transform lives through the power of music and dance. The DPAA offers a wide variety of performance and education programs, setting a new standard for artistic excellence. DPAA performances reach an audience of more than 90,000 people annually, and their rich arts education programming serves over 60,000 schoolchildren in 150 schools in the Miami Valley. These performances and education initiatives are made possible in part through major support provided by the Ohio Arts Council, Culture Works, the City of Dayton, Montgomery County and the National Endowment for the Arts.