Community Arts Schools and Conservatories
ACHF Arts Education
Headwaters School of Music and the Arts will see a five percent increase in arts activities for people over 60 years of age. Headwaters School of Music and the Arts will provide two additional artists to work with people with disabilities who want to create art. Our First City Singers choir will be able/willing to perform at one additional senior facility in the Bemidji area in 2013. One additional music artist and one additional painting artist will be added to the programs offered to adults with development disorders. We receive comments on a regular basis from the residents of area elderly housing communities, as to how much they enjoy the First City Singers when they come to their respective residences. Many of the residents know many members of the First City Singers and in fact there are five members of the First City Singers are residents of the facilities. Having this sharing of music between seniors who are still living in their own homes with seniors who live in assisted living or nursing homes is vital to the well-being of both groups. 2: Headwaters School of Music and the Arts will plan three additional concert opportunities to persons within a 50-mile radius of Bemidji in the fall of 2012/spring 2013. The evaluation for this second outcome is totally visual and firsthand appreciation that I will share two stories: One adult who has taken piano violin and pottery classes shared with us how much she has enjoyed each opportunity. In fact she shared with me that she has found the art form that she plans to make a part of her life. She loves pottery and has made some beautiful pieces that she has been able to show and sell at a local art fair. This has given her great confidence. Another young woman (age 29) began voice lessons in the summer of 2013. She has been very isolated all of her life. She lives 35 miles outside of Bemidji. She does work at a local day activity center and her worker transports her here to her lessons once per week. This past December she participated in a recital situation. Her whole family came to see her perform. It was so heart-warming and her family is overjoyed that she has this opportunity to bring new vitality into her life and how this becomes interwoven into who she is.
In the spring of 2013, a group of 36 senior adults began a program at Headwaters School called First City Singers. This group is comprised of both men and women ages 62 - 85. This group's focus is to come together to sing for enjoyment and then to share their selection of music at five local elderly housing complexes here in Bemidji. This group comes together on an every week basis for rehearsal purposes and then goes into the community the last two weeks of each month to five different assisted living/nursing home communities. At each of these sing-outs, there is the opportunity for the residents to sing with the group and at the end of the sing-out, the group has coffee and treats with the residents. 2: During 2012 and 2013, the Headwaters School has added two different art programs for people with disabilities. We have begun offering private lessons to adults who are part of the adult DD population here in Bemidji. We have had five different individuals take advantage of private voice, piano, and violin lessons.
Other, local or private