Community Music Partnership

The Oregon Symphony has toured the state extensively throughout its 110-year history. Too often, however, its presence in Oregon's rural communities was fleeting at best, making a lasting impact on music and music education virtually impossible. In 2001, Oregon Symphony staff, musicians, board, and past community partners undertook a comprehensive review of its statewide presence to answer the question: "What does the 'Oregon' in the Oregon Symphony mean?" One result was the creation of a program designed to challenge communities' understandings of how the arts enrich schools and the broader community.

What are the Oregon Symphony's goals for the Community Music Partnership program?

The goals of the Community Music Partnership are to:

1. Enhance the capacity of a community to identify and address arts development needs and aspirations in their schools and community
2. Provide high quality, frequent, ongoing staff development focused on implementing and meeting local/state arts standards
3. Through a partnership of community members, school staff and symphony musicians, develop, teach and assess experiences (K-12) that promote equal access to high quality music education as part of the overall (core) curriculum
4. Document and disseminate examples of best practices learned through our partnerships

How are partner communities selected?

The Community Music Partnership is a music residency program that focuses the Symphony's resources on one rural or remote Oregon community of 30,000 people or less. Partner communities are selected through a competitive application process. The Symphony awards one CMP grant annually to undertake the residency activities at no cost to the participating community. Applicants are asked to meet a set of requirements demonstrating their readiness to partner with the Symphony.

The Redmond experience (324 kb PDF), through the words of one community member.