Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth

“Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of imagination is incalculable.” Carl Jung

As summer is ending, a new school year is beginning at The Music Settlement, and we are excited about all the great things that come with that. We have added new depth to our list of offerings in each department, including a Chinese language curriculum in the Early Childhood Department’s day school and preschool, World Music studies in the Department of Music, and expanded outreach and group opportunities in the Music Therapy Department, to name a few. We welcome new and returning faculty to upgraded facilities, including a new 10-station computer lab, a renovated room dedicated for Music and Movement classes, as well as a refurbished faculty lounge and expanded multipurpose studio in Music therapy, and brand new signage to help folks find their way around our Magnolia Drive campus. One look will tell returning students that we are dedicated to constant improvement in the on-campus experience, and that new students need not be concerned that their experience will be anything less than exceptional while they are with us.

Our faculty and therapists are returning after some much needed R & R during our brief slow period at the end of the summer, but we never really stop working to make things the very best they can be. Many of our teaching staff spent their time away in educational or performance pursuits, seeking to recharge their batteries and constantly grow in their ability to engage and involve their students and clients. Yes, you read that correctly - many of our music instructors went off to play music during their time away from the campus! In truth, so many of our instructors and therapists find themselves limited in their actual performance time during the year that they head off on vacation to play in a festival orchestra, to have an intensive study with a favorite teacher or take in a seminar or lecture, or just listen to live performances in as many places as possible.

A great example of this is Linda Miller, a Music and Movement specialist in the Early Childhood Department. She spent much of the last part of this summer preparing for a performance of a lifetime. She said to me the other day that, after years of teaching and performing music, “I finally am playing Severance Hall!” You can catch her special performance with the Ensemble du Monde in Reinberger Chamber Hall at Severance this Friday, September 10th at 8pm. They will be performing instrumental and vocal works by Mozart, Mahler, Dvořák, and Saint-Georges. Tickets are still available as of this writing.

That to me this is one of the things that make working in the arts so unique and special: you don’t necessarily want or need to get away from “the office” when your work is over. I also know that the same can be said for many of our students and clients, who spend significant portions of their summers in intensive education programs, camps, or continuing study. The arts truly feed the soul, to which anyone who has sat on the lawn at Blossom or Cain Park or numerous bandstands around the area can attest. At The Music Settlement we recognize that creative experiences should never be taken for granted and that a child given an opportunity to develop in a creative environment will more often than not carry that experience forward in life to their benefit.

Experts in the field of childhood development agree with this point of view as well. Here’s a brief excerpt from an online newsletter on the website ChildCareExchange.com that addresses the importance of a creative environment for childraising; I think you’ll agree that it presents reinforcement of the value of the environment we work so hard to provide to your family.

The Creativity Crisis

A recent IBM poll of 1,500 CEOs identified creativity as the No. 1 “leadership competency of the future," reveals Po Branson in her Newsweek (July 16, 2010) article, “The Creativity Crisis”. However, she also reported research that revealed that "...creativity scores [for American children] had been steadily rising, just like IQ scores, until 1990. Since then, creativity scores have consistently inched downward." Branson notes that one likely culprit to the declining creativity of our children "...is the number of hours kids now spend in front of TV and playing video games rather than engaging in creative activities. Another is the lack of creativity development in our schools. In effect, it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there's no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of children." Other interesting insights in the article:

"Preschool children, on average ask their parents about 100 questions a day. Why, why, why — sometimes parents just wish it'd stop. Tragically it does stop. By middle school they pretty much stopped asking. It's no coincidence that this same time is when student motivation and engagement plummet. They didn't stop asking questions because they lost interest: it's the other way around. They lost interest because they stopped asking questions."

At The Music Settlement, our core mission is to engage all ages through a life enriched by the joy of music and the arts. We focus on helping each individual find their own joy, in whatever method they identify it. As our 98th year of service to this community begins, we know that that the enrichment we offer makes a lifetime of difference to so many. Please join us for the fun of it!

Have a great week!