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Got Culture? Expanding the arts in Inland Empire. By Michael J. MedleyPublished: September, 2003

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These pages have recently seen articles from the importance of music and the arts to a well-rounded education for our children. Two of the Inland Empire's artistic entities, the San Bernardino Symphony and Performance Riverside, have programs aimed at filling some of the void that budget cuts have left in this area of education. In numerous ways throughout the Inland Empire, efforts continue to keep the arts as part of the educational experience. For 20 years, the San Bernardino Symphony has offered a program called Music in the Schools. Through this program, which is conducted in cooperation with the San Bernardino City Unified School District, volunteer docents from the San Bernardino Symphony Guild visit third-grade classrooms in each of the district's 44 elementary schools. Using diagrams, recordings and musical instruments, these volunteers offer a 40- to 50-minute presentation designed to foster an understanding of the workings of a symphony orchestra and nurture an appreciation of music in the youngsters. Jacqueline Davis, manager of the James K. Guthrie Music Library, is one of the volunteers who bring the programs to the schools. "We have some great groups of children," she says, "who are very interested and ask different kinds of questions. We take a violin, we take a cello, and we let them sit down with the cello, and let them hold the violin and pull the bow across the strings." Davis says that most of the volunteers are musicians themselves, "and they do a great job." See the real thing Davis says that the children are always encouraged by volunteers to attend a concert. To that end, the Symphony is offering a youth-oriented Sunday matinee Nov. 16. The concert will feature the music of John Williams and Sir Elton John from motion pictures such as "Star Wars" and "The Lion King." As someone who has been involved with music for all of her adult life, Davis laments what happens when education budgets become tight. "Music and the arts are the first things that get cut in the United States," she says, "and it's one of the most important assets that we have, and that we need. We're always working to keep that part of education established with the young people. It's very rewarding." Performance Riverside, a nonprofit theatrical production company that operates under the umbrella of Riverside Community College, has a School Matinee program offering special presentations of its plays to school groups of 10 or more at considerably reduced prices from the regular public performances. Community Relations Supervisor Patrick Brien says that the program has entertained and educated from 12,000-20,000 students, from grade school through high school, in any given year. "Because of budget cuts over the last several years," he says, "schools have been less and less able to provide their students with arts curriculum on their own. This meets their need, they feel, so they're able to offer the programs to their kids without having to take money from other areas that the state says they have to do." Performance Riverside's Chuck Abernathy hopes that this program provides as much inspiration as education. "The idea for this is to try to create our replacements further down the line," he says, "either as artists, or technicians, or administrators, or just as audience members or people who are well-disposed for the theater." In tune with the impact Abernathy can look around RCC's Landis Auditorium, scene of Performance Riverside's productions, and think of what the results might be. "If in this house of 1,350," he says, "we get a hundred people in there who would come to see a play again, we've done our job. If we, in a single performance, have one kid who might pursue it as an avocation, that's a big deal. "If in a season we find someone who might want to make this their life's work and do something wonderful with it, then we've accomplished something wonderful." Michael J. Medley is a senior writer for Inland Empire Family Magazine.

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