Cincinnati Public Radio (3)
1223 Central Parkway
Cincinnati, OH 45214
Classics for Kids
Cincinnati Public Radio is committed to engaging the next generation of classical music listeners through Classics for Kids®. Our program started in 1998 and includes an on-air program on WGUC (Saturdays at 10a and Sundays at 6p), lesson plans and games on classicsforkids.com, Of Note emails to teachers and parents, and partnerships with other music organizations for local events like Make Music Day. Through Classics for Kids® Cincinnati Public Radio has introduced hundreds of thousands of children to classical music as music education in schools continues to decrease
Program Goals:
Classics for Kids is Cincinnati Public Radio’s signature outreach program and podcast. Goals for 2023 included:
The Website: The Classic for Kids logo and website design were refreshed during the pandemic, but this year we are hiring web developers at Pixels & Dots to move the backend of the database/website to a new platform. The web coding we’ve been using for the past 20 years is obsolete and not easily updated. New programming will greatly improve the user experience and the functionality. It will also allow us to add quizzes, auto-schedule all Classics for Kids episodes, blogs and lesson plans. We will be able to highlight new content so teachers can easily find it. Our goal is to have this major update done by the summer of 2023.
Five New Lesson Plans: We’re proud to incorporate 5 new lesson plans about more diverse and modern composers on the CFK website; our partner Dr. Kay Edwards will create lesson plans about Jessie Montgomery, Native American Composers, Clara Schumann, William Grant Still, and Aaron Copeland's "Simple Gifts." The plan is to publish a new plan every 3 months and we will promote the new content in CFK’s Of Note newsletters, on WGUC, social media/Google ads, and an email sent to the Music Teachers National Association.
Twenty New CFK Blog Posts: Dr. Kori is a musicologist with expertise in the repertoire and networks of Black classical artists in the 19th and 20th century. Dr. Kori contributes to I CARE IF YOU LISTEN, annotates program notes for the Baltimore Symphony, Seattle Symphony, and the Chamber Music Society at Lincoln Center. She will create 20 new bog posts about diverse composers and musical concepts, and we will add them to the website twice a month. These will also be promoted in WGUC’s social media accounts, and in our Of Note email.
CFK Fun Fact Videos: CFK kids are in elementary school and short videos hosted by young people are a great way to peak their interest in music, instruments and Classics for Kids! CPR is partnering with 779 Video to produce 15 short videos hosted by Symphony Youth Orchestra musicians. Sheila Gaffney wrote the initial videos and our CFK intern Iman Williams will write the second batch. These videos will be added to the website by Fall 2023.
Classroom Visits and Field Trips: The goal of Classics for Kids is to introduce children to classical music, but we also want to teach them about the possibility of a career in music. Our WGUC on-air hosts will visit at least 4 local schools including T.C.P. World Academy and a few Cincinnati Public Schools. We are planning to bring a group of students to the WGUC offices for a session on film scoring. This gives us a chance to interact with the students directly – and to share our own personal stories about careers in music. In addition to in-person classroom visits, host Naomi Lewin has been offering virtual classroom visits, and has recently been hosted in classrooms for several weeks at schools in Boulder, CO.
CFK Intern: Iman Williams is a Master of Music in Flute Performance at CCM and she will be working 10-15 hours a week as our new CFK intern. Iman will be responsible for completing 10 new CFK Fun Fact video scripts by May. She will also assist with CFK classroom visits and community events such as the Lollipops concert in March.
Instrument Giveaway for Cincinnati Public Schools: Our Program Coordinator Kahvah Whittaker will meet with Cincinnati Public School's Fine Arts Curriculum Manager to identify music programs in need. Our goal is to give the gift of music to a student who is interested but cannot afford an instrument. The goal is to have the program in place by September 2023, in time for the new school year. Ms. Whittaker is also looking into the possibility of offering music lessons and/or instrument rentals for kids in a local classroom.
Cincinnati Public Radio will proudly broadcast more than 600 CFK/Dater promotional spots throughout the year acknowledging the generous support of the Charles H. Dater Foundation.
Program Results:
Actual Results for Nov 2022-Nov 2023 include:
Website – The NEW CFK Website is complete! The new website launched in mid-November; it’s a complete rebuild since the old website was built on web code which is no longer used/supported. This took more than 8 months and was the primary focus of the year.
CFK Blog Posts - In November of 2022, Dr. A. Kori Hill became CFK’s new blog contributor. Dr. Kori has posted 10 blog posts to date and will finish the year with a total of 22 blogs posted. Dr. Kori is a musicologist whose work explores the repertoire and networks of Black classical artists in the 19th and 20th century.
Posting Date Topic
11/15/2022 Introducing Dr. Kori
11/22/2022 A Fiddler's Tale
12/15/2022 Handel's Messiah
12/27/2022 Ballad of the Brown King
1/30/2023 Art Song & Concert Spirituals
2/24/2023 Schubert, Schumann, Price & Burleigh,
2/28/2023 Vivaldi, Mozart, and Joseph Boulogne
3/14/2023 Concerto-Vivaldi's Four Seasons
4/19/2023 Mozart's Concerto No. 5
5/4/2023 Programmatic Vs. Absolute Music
10/5/2023 Opera 1
10/12/2023 Opera 2
10/19/2023 Musicology 1
10/26/2023 Musicology 2
11/2/2023 Serialism + experimentalism 1
11/9/2023 Serialism + experimentalism 2
11/16/2023 Symphony 1
11/23/2023 Symphony 2
11/30/2023 Perry, Violin Concerto No. 2
12/7/2023 Shostakovich, String Quartet no. 7
12/14/2023 Brahms’ “Academic Festival” Overture
12/21/2023 Duke Ellington’s “Black, Brown, & Beige"
CFK Fun Facts – Two of the 15 new CFK videos were produced and are now on the homepage of the new CFK website (classicsforkids.com.) The intern who was hired to manage this project left and we had to prioritize the expense and staff time required to complete the website upgrade and launch.
Classroom Visits - CFK Host, Naomi Lewin, virtually visited school classrooms to introduce teachers and students to build upon information that is shared in the weekend broadcast.
Lannah Fitzgerald’s 8th grade class in Walpole, MA
Trystan Russell, who uses Classics for Kids in his classroom in Ireland
Stephanie Fida, the music teacher at Columbine Elementary, a bilingual English-Spanish school in Boulder, Colorado (3 separate visits)
5 new lesson plans at classicsforkids.com - Dr. Kay Edwards produced 5 new lesson plans for the Classics for Kids Website including plans on Native American composers, Clara Schumann, Copland, William Grant Still and Montgomery (by the end of this month.)
Classics for Kids Intern- Iman Williams (CCM student) was the CFK intern for 2 months; she led a field trip, began writing scripts for Fun Fact videos and worked with students on a podcast.
Music Lessons Scholarship - Classics for Kids selected its first three recipients of the Classics for Kids Scholarship in October of 2023. CFK awarded Maya Pero (violin), Nyla Smith (violin) and Baylen Smith (cello) $1000 each to pay for instrument rentals and lessons through the Peraza Music Workshop from October 2023 until May of 2024. The workshop is led by Marion Peraza, who is the co-founder and artistic advisor and coach for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra’s Nouveau Program. The students were selected based on financial need and the desire to assist children of color interested in the arts. Marion Peraza had this to say about the scholarship opportunity: “The timing of this scholarship could not have been better. These students are in 6th and 7th grade, meaning their age range goes through several transitions as they leave elementary school. This funding means so much to be able to support their talents in continuing to grow their love for music. The students selected are extremely passionate and prior to this opportunity, their parents were unsure of if they would be able to financially afford to continue lessons. Thank you so much for supporting these children!”
Make Music Day 2023 - Make Music Day took place on June 21, 2023. The day began at the Bond Hill Recreation Center, where CFK host, Naomi Lewin and principal horn of the Cincinnati Symphony, Elizabeth Freimuth, performed A Visit from the White Rabbit for 28 campers. Students were educated on opera singing and the french horn and were able to ask questions about the story and music in general. Next, the fun continued at CFK’s signature Make Music Day event at Washington Park. Over 100 campers from Project Connect, a camp that serves homeless youth in Cincinnati Public Schools, participated in the day’s activities including: beat making with the Music Resource Center, bucket drumming with Band in a Bus, a live performance of A Visit from the White Rabbit, and instrument petting zoos provided by Antonio Violin and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Students were also able to stop by the CPR tent to answer classical music trivia questions for a chance to win CFK and CPR merch. CFK’s last stop of the day was to the Pleasant Ridge Rec Center, where Naomi and Elizabeth performed White Rabbit for 82 campers.
On March 13, 2023, Classics for Kids hosted its film scoring education workshop and field trip experience. The day began at Cincinnati Public Radio, where 38 students and parents from TCP World Academy participated in an interactive discussion facilitated by CFK intern, Iman Williams and special guest, WGUC host, Nikea Randolph. Students learned the basics of film scoring and participated in a listening activity where they learned how music in film helps to evoke different emotions. The workshop was followed by a studio tour and lastly, a trip across the street to Music Hall to Black Panther in Concert at the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. Superintendent and Principal of TCP World Academy commented, “This was a wonderful experience for our group. Thank you so much!”
Weekly broadcasts on WGUC – WGUC consistently aired the program on Saturdays at 10a and Sundays at 6p throughout the year.
Of Note Subscribers - CPR paused the Of Note emails due to the website transition but we sent one in October just before the website launch.
Cincinnati Public Radio aired 720 CFK spots throughout the year.
Classics for Kids Stats:
Podcast Downloads: 226,280 (est from PodTrac)
Unique visitors at classicsforkids.com: 656,792
Page views at classicsforkids.com: 3,430,407
Of Note email subscribers:8,007
Website:
http://www.cinradio.org Amount: $75,000
Date: March 2023
