The Impact on Students, Their Abilities, and Their Culture

I would say that from my experience, BRAVO offers a uniquely vital and invaluable approach to the arts for young people. The teachers and parent volunteers are extremely qualified and committed to bringing the notion of creativity through music and the arts to children at a time when it is needed more than ever in our culture.

– Steve Heitzeg, composer

BRAVO is one of the most effective arts education programs in our area. It has connected thousands of students with great music and art for years, helping them become stronger cultural citizens. It has inspired thousands of parents, through training sessions and classroom presentations to take an active role in their kids’ education, and in the life of their kids’ school. Recognizing the value of the BRAVO program, several Minnesota Orchestra musicians have volunteered their time to participate in an educational video for use in presentations, and the orchestra has provided concert tickets and has invited BRAVO volunteers to attend orchestra rehearsals. We strongly support the BRAVO program!

– James Bartsch, Former Director of Educational Activities, Minnesota Orchestra

The Impact on Volunteers

Volunteers have a chance to learn about music along with their children. This is not an opportunity offered to parents by most other volunteer opportunities.

Bravo has been a wonderful experience for me as a parent volunteer. It has allowed me a presence in my children’s classrooms, interacting with the students and learning along with them. The stories of many of the composers, (that we studied) are remarkably inspirational, no matter how much you care about classical music. Most students would never hear these stories, if not through the Bravo curriculum. I know I never learned these stories in all my years of education and even my years of music lessons and school music classes!-

– Jennifer Johnson, BRAVO Chair and Volunteer, St. Therese, Deephaven, MN

As a BRAVO volunteer in Bloomington I found that BRAVO offered a “level playing field” to ALL students. During many of my years at Oak Grove, the ESL (English as a second language) teacher worked with students speaking over 40 different languages. But, in BRAVO classes the primary language of students, their academic abilities, their discipline, did not seem to matter.

The students were intrigued with the sounds of the music they heard, as well as the images this music stirred up in their imaginations. They were fascinated with the instruments being played, the composers who wrote the music and how the composers put the music together. They also liked learning about what was happening in the USA and the world when the music was being written.

– Rita Docter, BRAVO Volunteer Oak Grove Elementary School,
Bloomington, MN

Impact on Band and Orchestra

Speaking in regards to Bravo, we have found that because of this wonderful program, more and more of our students have joined orchestra and then added band in the 6th grade. They are picking up instruments that they may have not considered previously.

– Laura Furst, Bravo Chair, Hoover Elementary School, North Mankato, MN