Project Grant

We expect to see multi-generational families at the nursing home concerts, and we hope to gather a large number of comments and stories to share with the Central Minnesota Arts Board in the next grant report. Local musicians often get to know one another. We played with Sartell High School a few years ago, and several of the players joined Campus Band at St Cloud State University afterward, looking to the Saint Cloud Municipal Band members in that organization as mentors. Unfortunately, we may not know if we were able to entice students to continue playing until long after the grant report is due, and we may never know if they attend any other college or university, but we do have an impact. In nursing homes, we promote clapping, singing or even dancing with the music. In high schools, we attempt to influence students to remain engaged with music after high school. Responses from our Barden Park Survey were extremely favorable to these discussions. We expect to receive similar feedback from our nursing home residents.We converse with residents of the long-term care facilities after the concerts. We will ask the residents to clap, sing along with us or invite them to dance with the music. We will provide surveys for the residents to fill out; possibly also collecting some the next day as the nursing staff will be busy bringing the residents back to their rooms after the concert. The surveys will let us know the types of music residents would like to hear next year. Short-term measurable goals for high school students can be measured by stories from the musicians as we visit with the students as we set up for the final pieces. When we play with high school bands, we both play pieces separately, but also we have 3 or 4 pieces we play together in an ensemble. In this way, the students have the opportunity to meet and chat with people who play their chosen instrument for years after high school graduation. In this way we promote the idea of music as a lifelong passion.