What role can music play in A conversation with Joan Katz Napoli, The Cleveland Orchestra’s senior director of education and community programs, about learning through music and music-making. Q: Please talk a little about yourself. What brought you into music education? Joan: Cleveland is my hometown. Singing in chorus was my first love. Then I heard The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Hall on a school fieldtrip I’ll never forget — the beauty of the building, the intensity of the music, the whole experience left a huge impression on me. After college, I spent 16 years in children’s television in Washington D.C., first at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, then at PBS, where my work received a Peabody Award and two Emmy nominations. That work ignited a lifelong commitment to kids and learning, which I brought with me when I returned to my hometown — and to my beloved Cleveland Orchestra! — to raise a family. Here I am 26 wonderful years later with an Orchestra more committed to learning and serving the community than ever before.
Q: Why is a symphony orchestra involved in music education? Isn’t that something that usually happens in private lessons or school classes? Joan: In many schools, both public and private, when budgets are squeezed, arts programs — including music — are too often among the first cuts. This is a situation that may worsen as schools prioritize other needs coming out of the pandemic. We want to help ensure that music is part of every child’s life, regardless of a school’s financial situation. Decades of research has documented the positive impacts of music on learning. Kids engaged in music have better grades, higher school attendance and graduation rates, better workforce opportunities, and more positive outcomes overall. The rigor, self-discipline, teamwork, and perseverance that music study requires are skills that transfer directly into other areas of learning and living, and which last a lifetime. Q: How long has The Cleveland Orchestra been involved in music education?
THE CLEVELAND ORCHESTRA ARCHIVES
Joan: Education and community service have been part of The Cleveland Orchestra’s mission from day one in 1918. Frankly, even before day one. The Orchestra’s founder, Adella Prentiss Hughes, recognized from the start the inherent value of music education for children, as well as the need to grow an audience for her new orchestra. Our first music director, Nikolai Sokoloff, was hired to create a music education program in the Cleveland Public Schools at the same time he was working to hire the first musicians to form the Orchestra itself. Teaching about music and learning to play a musical instrument was considered an essential part of a wellrounded education back then. Many of us still think it should be! Q: What kinds of programs did the Orchestra offer to students a hundred years ago?
Since its founding in 1918, The Cleveland Orchestra has been involved in teaching and inspiring young people through musical concerts, lessons, and presentations.
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Joan: In the earliest years, The Cleveland Orchestra’s involvement was to offer a grounding in classical symphonic music. In cooperation with the Cleveland Board of Education, beginning in 1920, Orchestra members gave instrumental music lessons on Saturday morn-
