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"Community Anthem" at P.S. 63Q

As part of our school wide, year-long "Community Anthem" project that will connect students to their local and global communities by weaving a tapestry of the arts and technology around a social studies based framework, a 12-week residency with a composer will provide instruction in music composition for students and professional development for teachers.  Students will compose four separate anthems for the school, the city, the borough and New York City.  Cultures and national anthems from around the world will be researched and explored, focusing on the ethnicities predominant in the school community.  Parents and community leaders will be invited to classrooms to discuss their country of origin.  Music teachers on staff will incorporate literacy standards in the production of student-created lyrics.  Students will demonstrate multicultural dances.  Visual arts teachers will facilitate creation of artwork for CD, DVD and other related projects, such as flags from various countries, to be displayed school wide.  A multimedia compilation will be produced by a group of students who will shoot and edit video of the entire process.  Multimedia presentations will also be created for countries students have researched.  Anthems will be recorded and utilized on the CD and DVD.  A Flag Day festival in June will be our culminating event, inviting the community to view a showing of the visual arts projects, multimedia presentations, international dances, as well as live band and choral performances of student-composed anthems.  All grade levels will be included in some element of the project.

Funds for the composer residency were provided by a grant from Queens Council on the Arts in partnership with matching funding via Arts Horizons.  Studio in a School partnership funded by a Magnet Arts grant.  Additional funding provided by Project Arts.