During the 1991–92 season, Geneva Concerts began an educational outreach program which continues to grow. In recent seasons we have reached more than 1,000 school children annually. This program helps to build our future audience base by exposing our children to a wide variety of concert and dance performances and it assists the Arts-in-Education programs for Geneva and the surrounding school districts by providing high-quality performers for school programs.Each year, our members generously provide funds for our Sponsor-A-Student program which provides free tickets to all children through high school. Tickets are available at the box office on the night of the concert.
Rachel Liu was inspired by the concerts she attended using Sponsor-A-Student Tickets to write this beautiful poem.
Movement workshops during gym classes for elementary students at both North Street and West Street Elementary Schools in Geneva (Fall 2008) lead by Taylor 2 Dance Company.
The Ithaca College Faculty Brass Quintet performed at assemblies at West Street School in their gym and St. Francis-St. Stephen Elementary School in the sanctuary of St. Stephen's church on Wednesday, October 2, 2024. Students from Moodie's Children's Hours Schoolalso attended the outreach at St. Stephen's.
From the beginning of the first piece at West Street, it was clear that the students were experiencing a world class music performance. In her introduction, the music teacher at West Street spoke of the expectations for good concert behavior and attention. When the quintet started their first piece, a fanfare style composition, it was so impressive, the students seemed to be shocked at how good it sounded. The quintet wisely played relatively short pieces to begin the program. Each new selection was different from the previous one, with ragtime and waltz selections following the fanfare.
Several longer pieces followed, including an arrangement of the early jazz tune "That's a Plenty," as well as more modern sounding original selections. The students at both schools showed good discipline, maintaining their attention throughout these sophisticated longer compositions.
As with our previous small instrumental ensemble performances, each player demonstrated their instrument, spoke about what made it unique, and asked questions of the students such as, "How is the sound made on the trombone?" Several students guessed what that might be, until one realized that it was the buzzing of the lips that made the sound.After a question and answer session, the quintet performed Kevin McKee's dynamic composition "Escape." The Ithaca College Faculty Brass Quintet provided a rich and rewarding music experience for all of the young students who witnessed their performance. Participation Summary: 549 students and 63 staff.
The Ithaca College Faculty Brass Quintet at St. Stephen's Church. Photo: Tom McClure.
On Friday morning, Victor Quijada, the RUBBERBAND's artistic director and choreographer, lled a guest class in the Department of Dance and Movement Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
The class began with Quijada's personal history and how that led to the creation of his dance company. Quijada was born in Los Angeles and grew up with hip-hop culture. He moved to New York where he trained in the classical and modern traditions. In 2000 he moved to Montreal to join Les Grands Ballets Canadiens. Two years later he formed RUBBERBAND as a way to fuse the classical/modern tradition with hip-hop.
Quijada then generously invited the Hobart and William Smith dancers into his unique approach to movement generation, the highly physical and sensory, RUBBERBAND Method.
Participation Summary: 11 dancers and 8 observers.
Victor Quijada with students at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
In the afternoon, RUBBERBAND gave a lecture-demonstration for all Geneva High students intheir gym, which featured short pieces from the upcoming performance at the Smith.
The program began with a piece entitled "Secret Service" with music by Sergei Prokofiev which received enthusiastic applause. Victor Quijada then introduced the company and gave a brief history ofits origins.
Individually, the dancer's illustrated several aspects of the "RUBBERBAND method" of movement for the students. This was followed by "sHip sHop Shape ," a piece forthe entire company with music by J.S. Bach. Again the students appreciated the athleticism of the dancers.
Dancers Jessica Muszynski, Cindy Mateus, Dareon Blowe, and Jovick Pavajeau-Orostegui illustrate aspects of the RUBBERBAND method.
Then it was the students' turn to participate. Five volunteers were selected and each was given a single word ("everyone", "think", "dance", "really", and "awesome") and asked to provide a brief movement for it that incorporated some of the aspects of the RUBBERBAND method that were discussed earlier.Each time their word was mentioned, they were to perform their movement. This segment ended with Quijada saying the sentence: "Everyone thinks dance is really awesome" andthe students performing to which delighted their classmates.
The program ended with three dancers performing "Magic Trio," a comical piece that the students really enjoyed.
GHS students at the RUBBERBAND outreach. Photo: Gary Horvath.
A board member spoke with several students afterwards. Their descriptions included: "athletic," "strong," "interesting," "fantastic," and "10 out of 10, please come again!" Members of RUBBERBAND said how great the Geneva High School audience was. They had just recently performed in Colorado. The comment about those students was thatthey were very quiet, which Geneva High was not!
Participation Summary: 536 students and 29 staff.
On Friday, October 25, 2024 students in grades 3, 4, and 5 in the North Street School auditorium, and Geneva Middle School students in grades 6, 7, and 8 the Geneva High School gym enjoyed a musically sophisticated performance by Ithaca College Jazz Vocal Ensemble led by Professor John White. There were fifteen singers, all of whom are music majors at IC working towards careers either as music teachers or performers. Mr. White, playing keyboard, and a student bassist and drummer provided accompaniment.
The styles of music (swing, modern, or Latin jazz) were most likely new to the students, but, it was performed so well, that it held their attention beautifully. As a result, the students became aware that there are "cool" music styles for them to enjoy.
The principals at both schools have been working on good "concert etiquette." The students were asked to do only three things, look, listen, and applaud at the end of each piece. Especially the North Street students did just that. At one point Mr. White gestured to have them click their fingers to the beat of the music, which they did.
The program featured a variety of jazz styles, including "Sing, Sing, Sing" in the Swing style, "Muddy Water" a blues tune, a beautiful arrangement of "On a Clear Day," an a cappellasong "Words," and two upbeat Latin tunes, "Mas Que Nada," by Brazil 66, and "Spain" by Chick Corea.
Ithaca College Jazz Vocal Ensemble at North Street School. Photo: Gary Horvath.
The assemblies successfully entertained and musically educated the students. As the North Street School Principal commented,"Always a pleasure to have Geneva Concerts in school. Thank you so much - they were wonderful!"
Participation Summary: 840 students and 50 staff and adults.
Outreach activities during the 2024–2025 concert season were underwritten by grants from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature,the Wyckoff Family Foundation, the Williams Family Foundation, and the Rotary Club of Geneva, NY,with by additional support from the members of Geneva Concerts.
Thanks!
Darrah Carr Dance Theatre performed two lecture demonstrations in the Geneva High School gym on Friday, September 22, 2023, one for all Geneva High School students and the second for Geneva Middle School students in grades 7 and 8.
Six dancers accompanied by four musicians (flute, fiddle, accordion, and guitar) performed an exciting and entertaining variety of Irish dance styles. The level of excellence was impressive, with one of the male dancers having won a Tony award for his performance in a Broadway show.
The dance segments featured solos, duos, trios, quartets, and sextets. Some were done without music while others accompanied beautifully by the instrumental quartet.
Darrah Carr also invited students to the gym floor to learn a few basic dance steps. The students followed her guidance and worked hard to master them.
For a change of pace, to allow the dancers time to change costumes, the instrumentalists played solos. The accordion player played a solo on the spoons, an ancient rhythmic percussion tradition. The students were impressed and exploded in applause. That same musician also sang an unusual Irish style solo resembling American "scat singing," the Irish/Scottish practice of lilting or diddling, a type of vocal music that involves using nonsensical syllables to sing non-vocal dance tunes.
Each segment in the assemblies held the attention of the students well, and, they applauded enthusiastically.
The Department of Dance and Movement Studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges was pleased to host a guest class with Darrah Carr Dance on at 7:00 pn on Friday, September 22, 2023. Thirty-three students participated in a beautifully rich class centered on Ireland's unique folk traditions as celebrated through music and dance.
Carr's dancers and musicians began with lecture demonstrations, stitched together by Carr's detailed explanations of how the dance and music function as a vehicle for social interaction building community. The company dancers interacted seamlessly with the Hobart and William Smith students, sharing intricate rhythmic and swirly spatial patters as represented in Celtic knots and therefore danced in partner and group reels.
Students were engaged in meaningful ways and gushed the next class about how much learned and could apply to their learning in class.
Participation Summary for the entire Darrah Carr Dance outreach: Approximately 968 students and 67 staff and observers.
On Friday, October 20, Ithaca Jazz Sextet from Ithaca College performed assemblies at three Geneva schools: West Street, St. Francis-St. Stephen, and North Street Elementary Schools, with several students from Children's Hours School also attending.The combo featured two saxophones, a vocalist, guitar, bass, and drums. At each venue they presented a similar age-appropriateprogram for the students.
The program began with Mike Titlebaum, the group's leader and a professor in the musicdepartment at Ithaca College, explaining to the young students what a college is, a place to study what you really like and what you want to pursue in a career. He then introducedthe members of the group pointing out the students in the group who were their interestsin jazz music.
Drew and Mike playing Sonny Rollins' "Tenor Madness" at West Street School.
Mike then pointed out what makes jazz music unique and then asked students to define terms like improvising, and "the blues," which they were able to do successfully.
Each tune featured improvising from different players. A "blues" tune was sung and played in the jazz style, then played in a style more like classical music, pointing out the difference between the "rougher" sound of the blues and jazz compared to the smootherrefined style of the classical version.
The group's high level of musicianship, and the leader's interaction with the students, and the educational approach to the program made the performances very entertaining and effective.
Above: Appropriate to the venue, the group plays "Pennies from Heaven" at St. Stephen's Church for students from St. Francis-St. Stephen and Children's Hours Schools.At all three venues, students worked on their skills to be a good audience.
At North Street School: Above left: The group plays "Broadway;" above right: Drew and Mike again play Sonny Rollin's 'Tenor Madness' this time at North Street School.
Above: The audience at North Street School.
Above: The audience at West Street School.
Above: The audience at St. Stephen's Church.
Participation Summary: West Street School 460 students and 65 staff; St. Francis-St. Stephen School: 108 students and 12 staff; Children's Hours School: 40 students and 5 staff; North Street School: 440 students and 30 staff.
On Saturday, November 4, 2023, the Fisk Jubilee Singers participated in a community sing for several choral groups at the Gearan Center on the campus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
After introductions the event began with St. Peter's Arts Academy (Geneva) Senior Choir Director Wendra Trowbridge leading her group in a renditionof ``Take Me to the Water.'' This was followed by So Noted, a local a cappella group, singing two short pieces ``Sleep Well Little Children'' and ``Rise Up Shepherd and Follow.'' Next, Three Miles Lost, a William Smith a cappella group, sang ``Just the Way You Are / Just a Dream.'' The first part of the program ended with the Fisk Jubilee Singers singing ``Walk Together Children'' to much applause.
The second part of the event was devoted to learning new songs. First, Patricia Blue, the Director of Geneva's Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Choir, taught the entire group the gospel song, ``Thine Shall the Glory be Forever More.'' This was followed by a question and answer sessionwhere the attendees learned more about the Fisk Jubilee Singers, and also shared information about performance preparation and practice. The event concluded with Three Miles Lost teaching one of their favorite songs, Sara Bareilles' ``Kaleidoscope.''
Above left: St. Peter's Arts Academy Senior Choir; above right: learning ``Kaleidoscope.''
Outreach activities during the 2023–2024 concert season were underwritten by grants from the Wyckoff Family Foundation and the Williams Family Foundation,with by additional support from the members of Geneva Concerts.
Additional support for the Community Sing with the Fisk Jubilee Singers on November 4, 2023 came from by The Audience Building Project, a program of the Lake Placid Center for the Arts and the New York State Council on the Arts with support from the Governor and New York State Legislature; the Statewide Community Regrants program, a regrant program of New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature and administered by Auburn Public Theater; and the Ontario County Arts Council.
Thanks!
The Cerqua Rivera Dance Theatre from Chicago performed assembly concerts in four Geneva schools on Thursday, September 15, 2022. Three excerpts from their Friday evening show at the Smith Opera House were performed in the Geneva High School gym for 620 Geneva High School students at 9:00, and 450 Geneva Middle School students at 9:30. Later, the same program took place for 110 students at St. Francis-St. Stephen School at 12:30, and for 310 fourth and fifth graders in the North Street auditorium at 2:00.
The skill and coordination of the dancers, the cool jazzy music, and the complex choreography kept the students attentive and engaged. Many “oohs" were heard when an impressive acrobatic move took place. One of the pieces used a large red sheet. The dancers combined their movements with the movement of the sheet, a special effect that helped to keep the attention of the students.
Two special segments required participation the students. To augment the recorded music, a percussionist using an African drum asked "What is this drum?" When no one had the answer, he said "It's a Djembe," singing the two syllables of the word with two descending pitches. There was silence, then he repeated it, and spontaneously the students in each of the schools echoed the two pitches of “Djembe." Then, without saying a word, he tapped a note on the drum, and all of the students reacted by clapping their hands once. This was followed by an amazing series of rhythmic echoing patterns back and forth.
A second segment demonstrated a choreographic technique to spell out the letters of a word, tracing the shape of each letter by their movements. After explaining this with the letter C from their home city Chicago, they invited six students to the floor. Each was assigned a letter from the word GENEVA and coached by the dancers on how to make the movements to represent their letter. This concluded with the students demonstrating spelling GENEVA with the movements depicting their letters in order. This was especially effective with the younger students at St. Francis-St. Stephen and North Street School.
CRDT's Paul Cotton playing the djembe. 
"Learning their letters" at St. Francis St. Stephen Elementary
At 7:00 that evening, Wilfredo Rivera, the company's founder and director, led a Latin Jazz Dance Workshop for the Geneva community at the Gearan Center on the campus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
The workshop started with several exercises to focus attention on different parts of the body and their movement. The rest of the workshop then incorporated these movements into short routines set to various pieces of music running backwards in time from the current day to the 1980s. Different styles of dance were explored from merengue to disco.
Left: Wilfredo Rivera demonstrating an exercise. Right: The end of the disco routine
Participation Summary for the entire CRDT outreach: Approximately 1,480 students and 55 staff and observers.
The Geneseo Wind Quintet, consisting of flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and French horn performed assembly concerts in three Geneva schools on Monday, October 24. The programs took place in the West Street elementary school gym for all students and staff, in the St. Stephen's Church sanctuary for all St. Francis-St. Stephen School students as well as students in grades 2 through 5 from Children's Hours School, and in the North Street School auditorium for students in grades 2 and 3.
The programs at the three schools followed the same format. Each assembly started with the exciting "Entry of the Gladiators." This quickly captured the interest and attention of all of the young listeners.Each musician demonstrated his or her instrument, explained how the sound is made, played a short melody, and mentioned facts related to that instrument. This was followed by a composition in which the instrument was featured. These pieces include phrases from "Peter and the Wolf" and "Star Wars" which students in each school readily identified.
In addition the quintet played sophisticated compositions by Ravel, Ibert, Muczynski, and Piazzolla, and the students experienced the excitement of world class classical music.
Participation Summary: Approximately 820 students and 85 staff and observers.
Outreach activities during the 2022–2023 concert season were underwritten by grants from the Statewide Community Regrants program, a regrant program of New York State Council on the Arts, the Wyckoff Family Foundation, the Williams Family Foundation, the Rotary Club of Geneva, NY,and by additional support from the members of Geneva Concerts. Thanks!
On Thursday, October 28, 2021, the Step Afr¡ka! Dance Company from Washington, D.C. performed two lecture demonstrations in the Geneva High School gym. The first was from 8:00 until 8:30 for the all Geneva High School seniors, the second from 8:40 until 9:10 for the junior class and some first-year students.
Step Afr¡ka!'s performers demonstrated their Step Dancing routines with energy, enthusiasm, and incredible choreographic mastery. A feature that helped keep the audience enthusiasm high was a "men vs. women" competition, where each group did separate short routines with the students cheering for their favorite.As a test of these qualities, both assemblies finished with Step Afr¡ka! teaching the students, who were asked to stand while still in the bleachers, a series of movements involving their feet, hands, and arms. This demonstrated how the choreography involved with step dancing is created with a long series of movement/step patterns. It also heightened everyone's appreciation for the incredible performances by Step Afr¡ka!.
Greg Baker, Geneva High School principal, thanked Geneva Concerts for, year after year, bringing educational, inspirational performances to Geneva's students, and commented, "This was the best one yet."
On the evening of Thursday, October 28, 2021 Step Afr¡ka! held a workshop at the Gearan Center for the Performing Art on the campus of Hobart and William Smith Colleges.Two members of the Step Afrika! company lead the workshop. After a brief introduction about the history of African-American step dancing, they described and demonstrated the basics of step dancing. Participation Summary: Geneva High School: 286 students and 14 staff and adults; Hobart and William Smith workshop: 18 students, 2 faculty, and 5 observers.
| North Street Elementary School Virtual Chorus |
During the 2020–2021 and 2021–2022 school years, the North Street Elementary School Chorus became a virtual chorus. Directed by Laurie Williams, the chorus made two videos (see below) in 2021 to showcase their talents and raise the spirits of the community. Their video from March, 2022 is entitled "Shine Like Stars" by Pinkzebra. The video has been posted to YouTube and may be accessed at the link below. Geneva Concerts was proud to underwrite the entire production and editing of this video. Enjoy! |
 "Shine Like the Stars" by Pinkzebra is available here. |
| Recorders for North Street Elementary School |
Geneva Concerts purchased 325 plastic recorders to give to all Ms. Williams' 4th and 5th graders in 2022. They had missed out on the recorder unit in 3rd grade due to pandemic protocols. |
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Outreach activities during the 2021–2022 concert season were underwritten by grants from the FairGame, an entity providing support to arts and culture organizations for projects in the regions represented by FairGame and determined by the NYS Gaming Commission, the Williams Family Foundation, and by additional support from the members of Geneva Concerts. Thanks!
| North Street Elementary School Virtual Chorus |
During the 2020–2021 school year, the North Street Elementary School Chorus became a virtual chorus. Directed by Laurie Williams, the chorus made two videos ("Walk Through Life" and "Just Be Happy," both songs by Pinkzebra) to showcase their talents and raise the spirits of the community. The videos have been posted to YouTube and may be accessed at the links below. Geneva Concerts was proud to underwrite the production and editing of the videos. Enjoy! |
 "Walk Through Life" by Pinkzebra is available here. |
 "Just be Happy" by Pinkzebra is available here. |
Geneva Concerts' outreach projects continued during the COVID-19 pandemic with a virtualperformance by Symphoria. Laurie Giroux Williams, the North Street music teacher wrote:
Geneva City School District 5th grade students really enjoyed the Symphoria Science of Sound program, and it was very informative. 5th graders usually have a music class unit on the Science of Sound, and this concert really fit the bill. Well done!
Symphoria performed a wide variety of musical genres including Cartoon Music (Muzquiz),Latin Capriccio (Custer), Mitos Brasilerios (Rosauro), Log Cabin Blues (G.H. Green), andSounds of Africa (Udow/Muzquiz).
Participation Summary: 149 North Street School Grade 5 students.
Virtual outreach activities during the 2020–2021 concert season were underwritten by the members of Geneva Concerts. Thanks! 
This series is made possible, in part, by a grant from the Williams Family Foundation, by a continuing subscription from Hobart and William Smith Colleges, by a grant from the Wyckoff Family Foundation, and by the friends of Geneva Concerts. For additional information contact info@genevaconcerts.org. 
