Outreach Programs

The Barthelmes Conservatory strongly believes that music, in particular, and all other art disciplines provide children with different and alternative ways to develop skills, process information, and express and organize their own knowledge. The results of recent, ground-breaking research identifies music education as that which equips students with the foundational abilities to learn, to achieve in other core academic subjects, and to develop the capacities, skills, and knowledge essential for lifelong success. Immediate intrinsic benefits of engaging in a school-based music program are aesthetic pleasure and captivation, which motivates students to seek more such experiences, and the social bonds created among students when they share their arts experiences through reflection and discourse. "Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without." - Confucius

The Barthelmes Conservatory Outreach Programs put the Conservatory in direct contact with Tulsa Public Schools’ and private schools’ students, teachers, parents, and administrators. The respective communities of public and private schools are: Kendall-Whittier, Remington, and Robertson Elementary Schools, Clinton and Rogers Middle Schools, and Holy Family Cathedral School. The Barthelmes Conservatory provides violin, viola, cello, guitar, and world percussion instruction to hundreds of school children from diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds at no cost to the parents and their children. Many of these children have later auditioned for entrance into the Conservatory’s prestigious Music School and won acceptance and full scholarships. Through the Outreach Program, the Barthelmes Conservatory maintains strong personal contact with the Tulsa community and its schools, most of which fall into the 91-99 % for free-and-reduced lunch programs (a concerning indicator of economic disadvantage). The Outreach is dynamic, and, over time, has refined the essential elements necessary to promote true and sustainable transformation for access to and excellence in music education.

See © Art Education Partnership, Music Matters: How Education Helps Students Learn, Achieve, and Succeed, Washington, D.C., September 2011, for more information.