Jazz Voices of Poetry is the creation of San Francisco composer Norm Rosenblatt. Norm uses the words of great published poetry as lyrics in original jazz compositions. Examples of the work can be viewed on www.jazzvoice.net
This is a proposal by Norm to bring our melded jazz and poetry into high schools and colleges to stimulate interest in both jazz and poetry to students who might not have substantial introduction to either.
I started writing original compositions to poetry in 2009. I collaborated with Ken French, a San Francisco jazz pianist and teacher. Ken brought vocalist Clairdee into the program and we put on our first concert on December 4, 2011. We later added vocalist Nicolas Bearde, and together put on 6 concerts in San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Ojai, California. Our audiences were enthusiastic as were the poets whose work we had used. (Examples of the reactions are on our web site).
One of the concerts took place on September 26, 2014 at a private preparatory school in Southern California – the Thacher School. Thacher is a highly regarded co-ed high school in Ojai, Ventura County. We were asked to provide:
The master class –while not a direct part of the Jazz Voices of Poetry program was added as a special opportunity for jazz students to get the benefit of the broad experience of our five band members. It was a highly productive session.
The classroom presentations were less than successful. (These were taught by me and suffered due to my lack of teaching experience).
I came away from the Thacher experience convinced that development of our objective of bringing jazz and poetry into the classroom would require careful planning and professional direction.
This is a proposal for seed money to discover and implement a viable program to bring jazz and poetry into high schools and colleges.
We will:
This four school research effort will provide a program and curriculum that we can demonstrate to other schools. To be worthwhile this seed money must result in a scalable project that can fulfill its stated objective and be independently funded.
It is difficult to estimate the cost of the educator who will develop this program. She will have extensive experience in curriculum development, but will be available – perhaps on a part time bases. For purposes of this request I suggest $25,000.
The schools will not, in most cases, have the funds so sponsor this program, thus the need to provide the cost of the performance from this grant. .
Costs for the four concerts – primarily the musicians will be $3,000 each –
Administration of the program will require $2500
The total seed money grant request is $39,000.00
This is a proposal by Norm to bring our melded jazz and poetry into high schools and colleges to stimulate interest in both jazz and poetry to students who might not have substantial introduction to either.
I started writing original compositions to poetry in 2009. I collaborated with Ken French, a San Francisco jazz pianist and teacher. Ken brought vocalist Clairdee into the program and we put on our first concert on December 4, 2011. We later added vocalist Nicolas Bearde, and together put on 6 concerts in San Francisco, Salt Lake City and Ojai, California. Our audiences were enthusiastic as were the poets whose work we had used. (Examples of the reactions are on our web site).
One of the concerts took place on September 26, 2014 at a private preparatory school in Southern California – the Thacher School. Thacher is a highly regarded co-ed high school in Ojai, Ventura County. We were asked to provide:
- A 60 minute concert
- Classroom presentations of a selection of the songs, with background and interpretation.
- A master class taught by our musicians to students involved with jazz performance.
The master class –while not a direct part of the Jazz Voices of Poetry program was added as a special opportunity for jazz students to get the benefit of the broad experience of our five band members. It was a highly productive session.
The classroom presentations were less than successful. (These were taught by me and suffered due to my lack of teaching experience).
I came away from the Thacher experience convinced that development of our objective of bringing jazz and poetry into the classroom would require careful planning and professional direction.
This is a proposal for seed money to discover and implement a viable program to bring jazz and poetry into high schools and colleges.
We will:
- Contract with a professional educator with experience in curriculum planning and development to:
- Contact and develop a relationship with four San Francisco Bay Area schools willing to work with us.
- Create the curriculum - the content and approach in the classroom.
- Work with English and Music faculty in the four schools to implement the classroom presentations.
- Develop measurement tools to evaluate the effectiveness of the programs.
- Evaluate each program at its conclusions
This four school research effort will provide a program and curriculum that we can demonstrate to other schools. To be worthwhile this seed money must result in a scalable project that can fulfill its stated objective and be independently funded.
It is difficult to estimate the cost of the educator who will develop this program. She will have extensive experience in curriculum development, but will be available – perhaps on a part time bases. For purposes of this request I suggest $25,000.
The schools will not, in most cases, have the funds so sponsor this program, thus the need to provide the cost of the performance from this grant. .
Costs for the four concerts – primarily the musicians will be $3,000 each –
Administration of the program will require $2500
The total seed money grant request is $39,000.00