For 20 years, Music at Eden’s Edge’s commitment to outreach has extended into the classroom through the Youth Chamber Concert (YCC) program, bringing the joy of music and live performance to more than 35,000 students. In lively presentations, MEE players help students discover their own ability to respond and relate to classical chamber music as well as to many other kinds of music also offered in these concerts.

Presented in partnership with eight public elementary schools in six North Shore communities – and provided at no cost to the schools – the program teaches music appreciation skills while giving students a chance to experience live chamber music and work with professional musicians in a classroom setting.

The program is designed to assist public schools in deepening students’ experience with and understanding of the arts. MEE uses chamber music performances and literature to teach four topics of music fundamentals:

• Year 1: Musical structures: Melody, variation, and accompaniment
  
• Year 2: Motion in music: Rhythms of all kinds and of multiple cultures
  
• Year 3: Approaches to listening: Ways to listen to, understand, and describe music
  
• Year 4: Uses of music: How music offers expressive vehicles for cultural experience
  

By putting music and instruments into a cultural and historical context, the YCC curriculum also supports the requirements of the Massachusetts Frameworks Curriculum.

Each segment of the curriculum includes a plan for an annual Residency Day when MEE artists visit the schools and perform for each grade. Keeping the groups small allows students to participate in interactive games and improvisations as well as hands-on activities and a question and answer session. This format also gives students an opportunity to feel close to the music-making and share in the excitement and involvement of the musicians themselves.

Funding for the Youth Chamber Concerts is provided in part by the Cultural Councils of Councils of Ipswich, Salem, Beverly, Newburyport, Gloucester and Lynn and the Massachusetts Cultural Council. Generous support has also been granted by the following businesses and foundations: DanversBank, Institution for Savings, McCarthy Family Foundation, Varian Semiconductor Technologies, Marion L Decrow Foundation, General Electric Foundation, John H. and  Naomi Tomforhde Foundation, Neal Rantoul Foundation, Medtronic Foundation, New England Biolabs Foundation and the Harpley Foundation.