YOUTH & OUTREACH PROGRAMS

The Reading Musical Foundation understands that music education is life-changing. The skills of musicians are the skills of life. The characteristics associated with proficiency in music are the essence of good leaders, employers, employees, students, parents and spouses.

Working under an education-based mission, RMF seeks to provide music opportunities to at-risk and underserved children – whether it’s an after-school Latin Jazz workshop, the PAL Youth Choir or recycling used instruments for students who can’t afford to rent them, students across the county are benefiting from the likes of music education.

The Outreach Committee meets throughout the year and continues to review and enhance established programs, as well as discuss future programming. If you have an idea or a partnership you would like to establish, please feel free to contact our offices at (610) 376-3395.


After-School Latin Music Program
Created by the Outreach Committee three years ago, the Reading Latin Music After-School Program originally began as a two week program in the fall and spring at Northwest Middle School. Since then the program has grown into a year round program offered on Tuesdays and Thursdays at the Reading Gateway School for the Arts. The school district buses in students from any of the district’s middle schools to attend the program. As after-school and intramural programs continue to be cut due to the district’s shrinking budget, RMF felt it necessary to provide a safe haven at no cost to participants for both established and beginner musicians.

On average there are 75 dedicated participants. Students learn Latin styles, including Cuban, Salsa, Mexican and Brazilian, on instruments like guitar, bass, keyboard, congas, bongos, hand percussion, harmonica and even voice. Daily instruction features group-style lessons along with preparation for a concert to conclude the program. The four instructors (guitar, keyboard, percussion and voice) are all professional musicians and private and/or public educators.  

The After-School Latin Music Program is unique because it attracts a new audience of musicians. The majority of instruments are not available in a traditional school music program. Current student musicians are drawn to the challenge of new instruments, while others are able to try music in a noncompetitive and encouraging environment.

After School Programs at Olivet's Boys and Girls Club
RMF is the music program at Olivets/PAL, providing lessons on guitar and keyboard and a teen chorus. Wells Fargo/Wachovia Bank was a major sponsor of that program last year and recently committed to continue its support this year.

Berks Summer Band Institute
Conceived by Ken Kemmerer of the Muhlenberg School District to keep young instrumentalists practicing and playing throughout the summer, the Berks Summer Band Institute celebrated its fifth year last summer. This year’s 360 participants, representing nearly all of the county’s public and parochial schools and including 20 adults, rehearsed for two months and performed short concerts in mid-August. RMF sponsors the Institute and awards engraved conducting batons to its college interns, who share the podium with the Institute’s faculty of practicing music educators in rehearsing the Institute’s four ensembles of different levels and conducting them in concert.

Colonial Oaks Parochial School Program
Colonial Oaks Foundation has partnered with RMF to enrich the musical offerings available to the county’s parochial school students, many of whom would otherwise receive little exposure to music. The independence of these schools from one another is a challenge to any countywide program. New last year were subsidized group instrumental music lessons given to nearly 40 children at three of the county's elementary parochial schools by Kathryn Uhler, a music teacher with the Community School of Music and the Arts.  Students performed as part of holiday, sacred and secular programs in the Diocese.  Two parochial school students received summer music camp scholarships and others participated in the second annual percussion camp at St. Peter’s School in Reading last summer.

RMF and Kutztown University are collaborating to develop a multi-year curriculum for the percussion classes offered at St. Peter’s School and St. Ignatius of Loyola School. This curriculum will establish standards for the program. Other initiatives include teacher in-service programs at the Diocese-wide in-service day in October, a choral workshop for teachers, and integration of student musicians into countywide music programs, including the Berks Classical Children’s Chorus and Berks Summer Band Institute.

Monthly Jazz Jams
Rounding out the in-school and after-school programs sponsored by Project Penske are the monthly Jazz Jams held at Zeswitz Music Store. Mike Eben, our volunteer coordinator for the program and Muhlenberg music educator, schedules and organizes the jam sessions. He hires professional musicians from Berks and surrounding counties, as well as college musicians from Kutztown, Temple and other well-known music colleges. Each session is open to any musician, no matter the playing level or age. The sessions feature a short concert, followed by jazz improvisation, which is crucial to any jazz musician’s training. There is also a lending library, where participants can borrow CDs and DVDs of famous musicians and concerts to hear new sounds and techniques.

M&T Bank Music & Teamwork Instrument Program
M&T Bank is funding the purchase of instruments for Reading’s middle schools in order to fill out the instrumentation of their ensembles and provide instructional opportunities to city students who might not otherwise be able to afford them.  With generous support from Zeswitz Music, a division of Rayburn Musical Instruments Co., Inc., M&T contributed an alto saxophone, a baritone saxophone, a bass clarinet, a full-size cello and a bass to the Reading Schools last year.

Music in the Schools  
Offered by RMF continuously since 1969 and its largest-scale music outreach program, "Music in the Schools" provided 44 educational concerts in the county's elementary schools and 12 in its middle schools last year.  About half of the budget for Music in the Schools is a direct appropriation by the Foundation's board of trustees.  Other financial support last year came from the Henry Janssen Foundation, the Rachel Herb Music in the Schools Fund, Colonial Oaks Foundation, and fees paid by participating schools and their parent-teacher organizations.

Ken Gehret, Music in the Schools' Middle School Coordinator, developed a high-energy program for this year that features Irish music and the music of various Celtic cultures performed by "Irish Mist," a three-piece ensemble consisting of Fran Chelius, Alan Chelius and Ken Gehret performing on fiddle, guitar, Celtic cittern, accordion, penny whistles, Irish flute, bodhran and bouzouki.  Storytelling and ballads link Irish ties and legends to Berks County and Pennsylvania. City parochial schools and nearby public elementary schools will enjoy this new program in March to honor St. Patrick’s Day 2010.

Need-Sensitive Scholarships
Let’s face it: Making music better comes with a price. It may begin with practice and the benefit of a school music program as its foundation, but it takes step-up instruments, private lessons and summer music camp/workshop opportunities to take a young musician to the next level. Frequently families find it difficult to include those extras in their household budgets regardless of how committed they are to seeing their children advance to that next level in musicianship. Lacking the financial means, many talented future musicians simply can’t compete with their peers for important rankings that not only help to define their musicianship but also cash prizes and recognition as well. That’s the case for support of the foundation’s new need sensitive scholarship program – student’s who need a helping hand.

Operation Replay
Underwritten by Zeswitz Music, a division of Rayburn Musical Instruments Co., Inc., Operation Replay recycles donated instruments. Now in its eighth year, “Operation Replay” gathers quality used instruments, pays for their cleaning and repair, and places them with children who cannot afford rental fees or the extra expense of a “step-up” instrument. Over 473 instruments have been placed through Operation Replay since its inception in 2001, 67 of them during the last fiscal year alone!

Project Penske
Five years ago, Penske Truck Leasing and the Reading Musical Foundation ventured together on a new series of programs focused on middle school and jazz education under “Project Penske.” Three large programs fall under the Project Penske umbrella – Student Recognition Awards, Reading Latin Music After-School Program and the monthly Jazz Jams at Zeswitz Music Store.

Student Recognition Programs
Each year the Reading Musical Foundation sponsors four student recognition programs that reward teamwork in the music classroom. Available to each school district in Berks County and chosen by the music department, monetary awards are made to musicians exiting middle school, seniors, accompanists and accomplished jazz musicians.

VIST Financial Mileage for Music Program
VIST Financial, formerly Leesport Financial, continues to fund “Mileage for Music.” That program subsidizes the transportation of students to private music lessons and was of particular benefit to families last year when the price of gasoline mushroomed.

Richard & Rosayle Yashek Electronic Composition Program
Held at the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts is a unique instructional sequence in music composition for young musicians that culminates in their performance of their compositions in the GoggleWorks Theatre. This year, the class will explore the inner-workings of the music industry, including engineering, marketing, music law and more. Students will begin exploring designing CD covers, copyrighting their music, uploading their music to music-for-purchase websites and more.