Carnegie Hall Introduces New Curriculum ‘The Orchestra Swings’

This month will mark the inaugural concerts of “The Orchestra Swings,” the first new Link Up curriculum since 2012 from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (WMI).

The new curriculum, made for students in grades 3-5, aims to introduce the idea of “swing” via a conversation between the symphony orchestra and a jazz septet.  Between May 23 and 25, the near 15,000 New-York-City-area students and teachers who have used the program in the past school year will go to Carnegie Hall for six culminating concerts in Stern Auditorium.

The program will feature Orchestra of St. Luke’s, conducted by Rossen Milanov, and Thomas Cabaniss and Chris Washburne. Composer Courtney Bryan’s new work “Do Your Thing” was commissioned especially for the program as a part of Carnegie Hall’s 125 Commissions Project. 

“The Orchestra Swings” makes four different curricula from The Link Up programs; other programs include “The Orchestra Moves,” “The Orchestra Sings,” and “The Orchestra Rocks.”

Materials from Link Up have been shared at no cost with more than 90 American orchestras, as well as in Brazil, Canada, Japan, Kenya, Spain, and Puerto Rico. As the program grows, the materials have been translated into different languages, including Spanish, Japanese, and Portuguese.