For the Cost of a Hot-N-Ready, MSU Brings Music Classes to Detroit Kids
Starting at $5.50 a week, the MSU Community Music School Detroit educates 700 Detroit-based students a year. A new grant from the Knight Arts Challenge will expand their jazz programming.
Click on the audio player to listen. CultureShift airs weekdays at 12 p.m. on Detroit’s public radio WDET 101.9FM.
The latest round of the Knight Arts Challenge pumped about $1.5-million-dollars into the local arts community. The grants will fund everything from a public garden on Belle Isle to photography exhibitions that highlight the experiences of Arab Americans in Detroit.
The Michigan State University Community Music School Detroit is one of the organizations that won a grant for $15,000.
Located in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood, the music school serves about 700 students each year from “babies to seniors and everybody in between,” says Woodward, who says students come from over 37 of Detroit’s Zip codes.
From beginner guitar lessons to advanced jazz courses and music therapy sessions, classes can start as cheaply as $5.50 per week for a student.
The school will use their new grant to fund a series called “Women of Jazz,” says director Jill Woodward.
“Jazz…has a history of many strong women since the very beginnings of this art form,” says Woodward. “Women are still a minority in jazz. They’re a minority in the arts. They’re a minority in a lot of regards in terms of leadership in the workplace. This is really…a chance to celebrate…the legacy of women both in the past, the present, and the future.”
WDET’s Ryan Patrick Hooper speaks with director Jill Woodward about how the grant will help help support their new program.
Click the audio player above to hear the full conversation.
