Personal letter

A Study to manifest the powers of music!

Scientists, school leaders, music teachers, parents and students have for centuries reported and testified about how music making together in class-rooms can transform not only schools and study results but also the building of minds in young people.

Yet, decision makers on all levels ignore, diminish and downplay music and the Arts as “entertainment” and “pleasure”.

A bullet that started a process

In June 19, 1975 I received a bullet in my right arm in a taxi robbery. I was driving taxi to support my music studies in Stockholm. A nine-teen year old boy held the gun. In court he explained that his reason to rob a cab was his desire to impress his friends that he dared to do what they only had talked about. With violence he made a statement!

In the Spring of 1990 I was a conducting student at the Michigan University in Ann Arbor, US. I was introduced to a music program involving all the regular public schools in the city. After building a musical platform in early school years every student had to learn playing an orchestral instrument. Mandatory! Within a year they were offered possibilities to play in orchestras and ensembles.

Pride!

I made a film documentary about the music program in Ann Arbor. Interviews with school principals, music teachers, parents and children opened doors to new worlds. What I saw and heard was amazing! Every person I talked with showed pride of their school and of their accomplishments, both musically and in their educational work.

I heard about how musical forms helped children to understand complexities in Math, Science and other subjects. I heard about how music making trained abilities to listen, to concentrate, to structure both their musical work and their study work. Children learned to focus and be present in mind, here and now. I heard about how music rehearsals trained tolerance, team work, self-respect and respect for others. Working towards a clear goal in near future, a performance - regardless if it was a big concert or performing at a parental meeting - made work meaningful and rewarding. Nasty comments or bullying had no place when everybody was working for a result to be proud of.

Had the nineteen-year-old boy from 1975 been a student in a music making class-room, we would probably never have met! Music would have allowed him to make a different kind of statement!

For 34 years I have visited, filmed and interviewed in musical schools both in United States and in Europe. In every school I have heard about the same experiences as in Ann Arbor.

For more than three decades I have arranged festivals and conferences to promote musical class-rooms. I have engaged in convincing a small community to become a pilot community. I have engaged myself in politics. Since 1999 I’m together with my wife Sofia running Cantemus, a choral Academy in Stockholm that has reached thousands of choral singers.

In many ways and in many arenas I have argued for how involving children in music making in class-rooms could change and transform all of Society. Constantly I have met deaf ears.

My conclusion is that the only way to prove that the powers of music can change Society to the better, is by launching a scientific study involving a select few pilot communities. The goal is to find economical support allowing our pilot communities to offer daily music education from day one in pre-school to the last day in high school.

One condition is essential: Professional, passionate and dedicated music pedagogues with skills to enthuse young minds and open ears and minds in young people to expressive music making.

Imagine a community where socio-economic differences in the population cause unsolvable conflicts between groups from different backgrounds. Imagine how music could give all children in such a community a language that everybody can share, the language of music! Music can build bridges between people from different worlds, brake barriers and unite all in unison music making.

This is my vision!

The purpose of the study is to demonstrate how musical class-rooms involving all children could build a world with tolerance and respect for all! Would there be wars in streets, in schools, in homes, in battlefields… if music was allowed to penetrate many class-rooms?

Economy? Believe me, if this concept can reach, involve and convince the right people, funds will be available. The concept can go from “dream” and become reality!

Göran Staxäng Director, Festival & Forum 21