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ACO’s Music Factory currently serves nearly a dozen schools and community groups in Brooklyn, Bronx, Manhattan and Queens. Here are a few of our partners.
MS 54 Booker T. Washington Intermediate School
Principal: Elana Elster
Music teacher: Deborah Cardona
Enrollment: 900 students
Address: 103 West 107th Street
New York, NY 10025
The mission of Booker T. Washington Middle School 54 is to nurture and develop a community of young learners with academic skills which meet or exceed the current standards, and the social skills and maturity necessary to ensure success in high school and beyond.
ACO has partnered with Booker T. Washington for the past 3 years, offering a rich curricula of residencies and workshops. Recently, Booker T. students gained a hands-on introduction to improvisation with composer Martha Mooke and the acclaimed Scorchio String Quartet, and created a sophisticated work of their own in collaboration with composer Ruby Fulton. This Spring Booker T’s beginning string students are improving their reading skills while creating their own work in collaboration with Violinist Jessie Montgomery and PubliQuartet.
IS 229 Roland Patterson Intermediate School
Principal: Ezra Matthias
Enrollment: 220 students
275 Harlem River Park Bridge
Bronx, NY 10453
The mission of I.S 229 is to enable all children to realize their potential and to lead gainful lives in the future. Partnering with parents and other community beneficiaries is expected to ensure that our children demonstrate a sense of responsibility for their own education and learning, show civility to all, and achieve at the highest performance levels. Through various programs that seek to develop appropriate social/emotional characteristics in our children, we also aim to create a safe and orderly environment where opportunities for lifelong learning can flourish.
IS229 had taken advantage of a variety of ACO education programs in order to provide year round intensive arts for their students. This year that has meant the development of a percussion ensemble under the direction of ACO Teaching Artist Andrew Drury, and a 12 week bi-lingual Songwriter’s Factory under the direction of ACO Teaching Artist, Manny Oquendo.
W. C. Bryant High School
Principal: Namita Dwarka
Music Teacher: Eric Teichman
School Enrollment: 2945 students
Address: 48-10 31st Ave.
Queens, NY 11103
Bryant High School, is a secondary school located in Queens serving grades 9 through 12. It is named in honor of William Cullen Bryant, an American romantic poet, journalist, and long-time editor of the New York Evening Post. He is most known for his work as one of the creators of Central Park in Manhattan, New York.
The William Cullen Bryant High School Community educates the whole child in an environment that is least restrictive and most inclusive. We believe that instruction involves teaching our young people of all academic, social and English proficiency levels; nurturing talent; encouraging leadership; and fostering mutual respect. Our high expectations are supported by a rich, diverse community, parental involvement, many academic institutions of higher learning, major corporations and a strong alumni cadre. We believe that, through collaboration, we will meet the challenges of the New Standards, surpass our expectations, and provide all Bryant students with the foundation and skills they will need to be productive members of society.
WC Bryant was one of the beneficiaries of the flurry of events surrounding the SONIC Festival this year. In October the world renowned Prism Saxaphone Quartet performed for the student body and followed up with a master class on behalf of the school band.
Fort Hamilton High School
Assistant Principal: Thomas Oberle
Music teacher:Kara Eaton
Enrollment: 4769 students
Address: 8301 Shore Rd.
Brooklyn, NY 11209
Fort Hamilton High School has the largest student enrollment of any High School in Brooklyn. Fort Hamilton’s mission is to provide all students, including ELL, instructional support services students, and at-risk students, with “Excellence in Education.” Our students and staff are diligently striving to meet the academic challenges of the 21st century. The improvement of teaching and learning is a major goal of the school’s plan for enhancing scholastic achievement and student attendance. Our philosophy is that all students are capable of succeeding and realizing their potential in an encouraging and nurturing yet challenging learning environment. The entire school community is committed to raising standards, supporting co- and extra-curricular activities, applying learning to real life experiences, and preparing all students to function productively in the post-secondary world.
The bands of Ft. Hamilton High School continue to benefit from guest artist visits and sectional coachings from world class ensembles such as the Manhattan Brass Quintet and Loadbang.
IS 129 Twin Parks Middle School
Principal: Yvette Beasley
Music teacher: Dennis McCumber
Enrollment: 575 students
Address: 2055 Mapes Avenue
Bronx, NY 10460
The goal of Intermediate School 129 is to provide a quality educational experience for all children and to develop fruitful partnerships with parents. Working together, we – educators, parents and community members – will provide our children with the proper tools to become life long learners and productive citizens of society.
ACO has partnered with Twin Parks Upper School for the past 2 years, through our Film Music Factory Program led by award winning composers including Paul Chihara and Don DiNicola. This Spring the students ar Twin Parks are also having their expectations and esteem heightened through a residency with The Dither Guitar Quartet.
Brotherhood Sister Sol
Director: Wendy Arroyo DeJesus
Address: 512 West 143rd Street
New York, NY 10031
Brotherhood Sister Sol provides comprehensive, holistic and long-term support services to youth who range in age from eight to twenty-two. Bro/Sis offers wrap around evidence-based programming. The organization focuses on issues such as leadership development and educational achievement, sexual responsibility, sexism and misogyny, political education and social justice, Pan-African and Latino history, and global awareness. Bro/Sis provides four-six year rites of passage programming, thorough five day a week after school care, school and home counseling, summer camps, job training and employment, college preparation, community organizing training, and international study programs to Africa and Latin America. 94% of BHSS alumni have graduated from high school or earned a GED; with 88% receiving their high school degree and 95% of BHSS alumni are either enrolled in college or working full time.
Over the past several years the ACO has partnered with Brotherhood Sister Sol to provide tecnology based programs such as Rhythm Factory, with Teaching Artists Randy Woolf and Milica Paranosic, and percussion ensembles with Teaching Artists Abraham Gomez-Delgado and Reinaldo DeJesus.
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School
Principal: Edward Demeo
Address: 120 W. 46 Street
New York, NY 10036
Enrollment: 724 students
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis High School works to prepare all students to meet the demands of the international community. The school is committed to a philosophy that secondary education must prepare students for both the immediate world in which they will be living during the rest of their lives. Students must be competent in those academic skills, which will enable them to pursue higher education, to accept later training or retraining, to continue their education at any point in later life, and to participate meaningfully in the life of the community.
JK Onassis HS was another of the beneficiaries of the events surrounding the SONIC Festival in partnership with Urban REmix. The students at JKO used smart phones to learn map reading while engaging with the surrounding Times Square neighborhood to record audio samples of their environment. The students then learned to use Urban REmix software to create sound designs and mash-ups. Ultimately the audio collected by the students was used as source material for performances by Sound Artists, Sam Pluta and Jeff Snyder at Roulette in Brooklyn.
The 92nd Street Y
Director: Yana Stotland
Address: 1395 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY
The 92nd Street Y School of the Arts has long been recognized as one of the best community-based art centers in the country. Comprised of the School of Music, the Art Center, the Harkness Dance Center and the Educational Outreach Program, the School offers classes for all ages and all levels of expertise: from preschool to high school, from enthusiastic amateurs and emerging professionals to senior adults?all taught by a faculty of working professional artists.
Exceptional music students in the honors program at The 92nd Street Y regularly take field trips to attend dress rehearsals of the ACO at Carnegie Hall and meet with the featured composers for discussions of their work.
For more information contact Kevin James:
kevin@americancomposers.org
212-977-8495 ext. 252