Accepting applications! CAP Young Musicians’ Orchestras, ALL-STAR Jazz Ensemble & Jazz PREP Band

Accepting applications! CAP Young Musicians’ Orchestras, ALL-STAR Jazz Ensemble & Jazz PREP Band

      August 2015 through May 2016, Community Arts Program (CAP) performing ensembles meet after school within the Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ Arts & Education wing. These ensembles include the CAP Young Musicians’ String PREP Consort, String Consort, Chamber Ensemble, Jazz PREP Band, and ALL-STAR Jazz Ensemble Each group is designed to take children and youth through the highest-level experience while developing exceptional musical and performance skills. Over the year, groups perform a minimum of five exciting concerts throughout Miami.

If you, or someone you know, is interested in joining, we’d love to hear from you. It’s easy. At the top of their home page, click on the Jazz Ensembles or Young Musicians’ Orchestras icon; see more details; then apply to be part of all the music making and learning. You’ll be contacted for an audition, upon receipt of your online application.

CAP Saturday Music Classes

September 2015 through April 2016, the Community Arts Program (CAP) Conservatory for the Arts offers its exciting Saturday Music Classes for Miami-Dade County children and youth. The CAP Conervatory for the Arts Saturday Music Classes meets within the in-kind classroom spaces on the campus of Ransom Everglades Upper School, in Coconut Grove.

Each Saturday, a diverse group of Miami-Dade children and youth attends CAP Saturday Music Classes. There, they engage in top-notch instrument training—violin, viola, cello, bass, guitar, piano, woodwind, brass, percussion, and voice—coupled with classes in written and aural music theory, performance practice, and 360 Forums (where parents attend classes with their children) taught by our 22-member (and growing) music faculty.

If you have, or know of, a

child (ages five-18) ready for challenging, exhilarating and well-rounded music learning, call the Community Arts Pro-gram at (305) 448-7421, ext. 120. Or at the top of their home page, click on the Saturday Mu-sic Classes icon for more information and to access the online application.

To introduce more young Miamians to jazz, Miami’s Com-munity Arts Program (CAP) will expand its Conservatory for the Arts to include an exciting and innovative after-school jazz institute.  This is made possible through support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation as part of its Knight Arts Challenge, which has awarded $100,000 to the Community Arts Program for its Miami Jazz Institute.

Since its inception in the early 20th century, jazz has been a reflection of American culture and is widely considered as the truly original American art form. Yet many graduate from high school with little knowledge of the historical importance and practical applications of jazz. The Community Arts Program solution to this is a Miami Jazz Institute (MJI) that will stimulate children through the richness of jazz as they understand its place in American history, its musical structure, and its practical applications in one-on-one lessons on a chosen instrument and in performance as soloists and as part of MJI performing ensembles that reflect Miami’s diversity.  With sliding-scale tuition   based on need, the Miami Jazz Institute will make it possible for more children to participate.

“There is a real need for after-school programs that fully immerse young people in jazz.  Providing them with a strong foundation in theoretical and applied learning builds solid understanding and adaptable skill sets,” remarks Community Arts Program Executive and Artistic Director, Mark Hart. “Opportunities like this create a more vibrant community and ensure a robust future for our children.”

“The Community Arts Program has a wonderful track record of preparing our students to be musicians and creative thinkers. This new program will extend that effort while bringing the arts more deeply into Miami’s many neighborhoods,” said Dennis Scholl, VP/arts at Knight Foundation.

Beyond theoretical and applied musical growth, Miami Jazz Institute students will also develop an understanding of collaboration, the correlation be-tween hard work, discipline and goal accomplishment, and the unity found within diversity.  Key to the Institute’s overall growth will be free, MJI student concerts that engage Miami’s many neighborhoods.  These concerts will expand jazz awareness and, most of all, spark other children’s interest in jazz and their involvement with the Institute.