We currently offer two concert programs designed for students in Kindergarten through 8th grade. Both programs are offered through Young Audiences of Oregon & SW Washington.
Our Northwest Bedrock Songs program teaches students about the songs Woody Guthrie wrote in Portland, Oregon during the spring of 1941. Students also learn about the progress and the costs of the Columbia River dams. More recent NW folk compositions by Dave Berge and Hobe Kytr are also featured in this program.
Our Call & Response program teaches students about the different ways that call & response is used in diverse styles of American music.
See Young Audiences’ website for more information about these programs.
Our Teaching Philosophy
Our mission is to spread our love and knowledge of traditional American music with as many people as possible, and we find that incorporating students into that tradition–by having them sing along with us–is the most effective way to do so. Thus, student participation is the most vital element of our teaching strategy. We are also committed to collaboration with teachers. By coordinating our concert program with classroom content, we make our program more effective and our concerts more fun. Each of our programs uses both contemporary and traditional material. This allows us to demonstrate that traditional material is not a dead thing that needs reviving. We are not sustaining tradition, it is sustaining us.
