This past summer, I worked with Opera Atelier (a Toronto-based baroque opera and dance company) as an Office Assistant. Over the course of the summer, I was given the opportunity to engage with the Education and Outreach Coordinator and with the educational programming that Opera Atelier was putting out – their Making of an Opera Online programming. I found myself more excited about this additional assignment than the rest of my work – being able to finally put my music and education hats on in this position; engaging directly with teachers, making suggestions to the programming. I found myself thinking: “I wonder what it would be like to do this job?”.
Part way through the summer, I was given the opportunity to step into an additional role of Interim Education and Outreach Coordinator. In this role, I got to put on my musician “hat” and my educator “hat”, and work on exciting projects with a diverse group of artists and members of the music education community. I found myself enjoying this role, but with not enough time (what with my other responsibilities and intersession), to properly immerse myself in the role. I also wanted to continue to explore this field – one which is at the intersection of many of my identities – as musician, as teacher candidate, as arts administrator, and as a social action-oriented citizen. Thus, I decided to pursue a placement in a similar performing arts organization context, and was fortunate to land a placement with the Education and Community Engagement department at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
My placement with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra (TSO) is scheduled to take place from the week of November 3rd to December 1st, 2021, and I will be working directly with the Education and Community Engagement department – a small (yet relatively large) team within the greater TSO Administrative Team.
Throughout the year, the TSO Education department engages in many excited projects for educational (school field trips) and family audiences, including Young People’s Concerts, Relaxed Performances, digital concerts, and livestreams. In conjunction with these events, the TSO develops teacher and family-oriented resources that enhance the experience of attending these concerts (lesson plans, study guides, program books, activity worksheets, etc.). My role at the TSO will be to work in conjunction with the team to provide insight and develop these resources for distribution and implementation.
One of the interesting observations from my summer position in education and outreach at Opera Atelier was that the digital teacher resources/educational programming was very co-curricular and extra-curricular in nature, but did not always apply to classroom topics, nor designed with learning goals or pedagogies such as Universal Design for Learning and Differentiated Instruction. I certainly anticipate this as an opportunity to observe and compare how the TSO resources are designed, but also an opportunity to bring my unique experiences as a teacher candidate into this placement. I also seek to challenge myself to view these resources with a critical lens: how might we design these educational resources with universal design in mind to make them more accessible to audience members with special education needs?
As such, I am also challenged by the fact that the Toronto Symphony Orchestra is an institution rooted in the performance of Western classical music – a segment of the performing arts that has long had a history of racism, sexism and elitism, and that has only recently come to a reckoning with its discriminatory and supremist values and practices. However, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra has (in my opinion), taken bold steps in diversity, equity and inclusion in terms of programming performances, representation in guest artists, collaborations in diverse art forms, amongst other initiatives. Thus, the question(s) that remains for me to explore is: How do performing arts organizations like the TSO embed social justice and decolonial values within the culture of the organization, and how does that trickle down into its educational programming? How do we reconcile both ends of this equation? How will my various identities and lived experiences as a traditionally under-represented person of colour, and as a current teacher candidate, inform my opinions and decisions in this position.
The Toronto Symphony Orchestra has always been a big part of my musical life – many an afternoon and evening were spent at Roy Thomson Hall pre-pandemic (as an elementary school student all the way to as a discerning university music student) enjoying performances and taking advantage of this great cultural institution. I am beyond honoured and privileged to be learning from and working with this organization, but also to take a critical lens to their work to develop a better way forward, for myself as a teacher candidate, and for the arts community as a whole.