Coordinator for the Music Department and Choral Director, Ms. Liliya Shamazov shares that for the past five years, Stuyvesant's Music Department has been collaborating with Richmond County Orchestra in a program called CASA (Cultural After School Adventures). With this program, our students receive individual and/or small group music coaching/lessons with professional musicians and participate in culminating productions side-by-side with their coaches.
This program is supported by the Department of Cultural Affairs, and New York City Council and has been approved to continue this year by Council member Margaret Chin. As an example of how this program has worked in the past, here are a few examples: our performance of Carmina Burana (CASA coaches worked with the instrumentalists, with one of them also playing in the concert), and another performance where a coach trained a group of my choristers for the performance of "I Love That Old Barbershop Style" - our very first Barbershop piece at Stuyvesant. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcXtVrckNnI&t=1331s; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPwbiJMb2P4).
As part of this year's collaboration, we will offer students virtual zoom lessons during and after school, create instructional videos for access via Google Classroom, and hold virtual master sessions with coaches. Since March, Ms. McAuliffe, Dr. Haber, and Ms. Shamazov have been working with the directors of the CASA program to secure DOE clearance for the coaches. We are now ready to begin our sessions this week. Scheduling is still tentative, but we will start by running guitar sessions on zoom every Tuesday 3:00-4:00 and 4:00-5:00 for volunteering students from Mr. Stephan's music appreciation classes. Mr. Harold Stephan will be hosting zoom meetings on Tuesday afternoons, and CASA coach Jenna Aurelia will be working with the students, teaching them guitar.
We are still planning for band and vocal sessions to be scheduled soon.
