School-Based Programs
Musicopia works with schools, from early learning centers through college, and various community partners to provide music and dance education programs throughout the Greater Philadelphia area. We provide a wide range of engagement options from one-time assembly or workshop programs to short-term cultural enrichment residencies which include performance opportunities for students. Long-term or full-year instrumental or vocal coaching programs are also offered to supplement a school's existing music curriculum. These music engagement options are delivered through four types of programs: Assemblies, Workshops, Residencies, and FAME Programs. Through our community partners, Musicopia provides these same educational experiences for the public.
For more information, please contact the Musicopia Program Director at 215-829-9522, ext. 101.
Watch the video below for a preview of our dance programs!
Afro-Brazilian Music, Dance, and Martial Arts
featuring: Ologundê
Ologundê ensemble celebrates the rich Afro-Brazilian culture of Salvador, Bahia through a diverse repertoire of music, dance and martial arts. In workshops, assemblies and residency programs, Ologundê delivers a diverse repertoire which includes the rituals associated with the Afro-Brazilian religion called candomblé; the breathtaking capoeira martial arts dance; and the exhilarating samba de roda.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Grades: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Afro-Cuban Music and Dance
featuring: Leana Song
Shawn Hennessey and Leana Song introduce the audience to the power and beauty of Afro-Cuban music and dance. Dressed in all white, the world renowned percussionists of Leana Song play traditional Batá drums, congas and cajons, bells and shekeres, all while singing ancient Yoruba songs to the Orishas. Leana Song engages students in Afro-Cuban music and culture through history, rhythm, dance, and song. Students will be on their feet during this rocking BatáRumba dance party!
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Grades: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Video Residencies Available
(Click to learn more)
Alex and the Kaleidoscope
featuring: Alex and the Kaleidoscope
Alex Mitnick, host of the Emmy® Award winning children’s TV show Alex & the Kaleidoscope, is your trusted friend & guide for an adventure filled hour of singing, moving, dancing, fun facts and celebration.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Grades: ELC K-5 Special Needs
Beats with Code
featuring: Doug Hirlinger
Students are led through the process of building music applications with Pure Data (Pd), a free and open-source visual programming language. During the process students are exposed to science and math related to music, sound, and computers, as well as coding and design concepts.
Available as: Workshop, Residency
Grades: 4-12, After-School, Community
Bollywood Dancing
Featuring: Swati Chaturvedi
Using ‘Bollywood Dancing’ as the vehicle, Swati Chaturvedi introduces the sounds and rhythms of India to showcase its diversity of culture, music, and the arts.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Brazilian Adventure in Music
Featuring: Minas
Participants are introduced to the culture and music of Brazil through the Samba, Bossa Nova, and Lambada styles of Brazilian music as the unique dance rhythms and culture of this Portuguese-speaking country are explored.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Brazilian Adventure in Music
Featuring: Minas
Participants are introduced to the culture and music of Brazil through the Samba, Bossa Nova, and Lambada styles of Brazilian music as the unique dance rhythms and culture of this Portuguese-speaking country are explored.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Bucket Drumming
Featuring: Leon Jordan Trio
Students expand their knowledge of music and develop an ear for percussion as they explore advanced themes such as polyrhythms, division of meter, and beat sub-division.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Catch the Vibrations
Featuring: Barnett String Quartet
Music and science combine in this interactive program designed to demonstrate through music how sound is produced.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: K-5
Come Together: Music of The Beatles
Featuring: Orlando Haddad and Patricia King
Concentrating on the Beatles, recording artists, Orlando and Patricia Haddad will bring this classic music alive with a student performance. Students will learn about the historical context of the Beatles as well as experience music that is intergenerational, universal, contemporary, which integrates international influences.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: K-12 After School/Community
Complaint Choir Residency
Featuring: Rebecca Graham
Rebecca creates a constructive and respectful environment in which students address their conflicts, controversies and frustrations through creative outlets including singing, music and dance.
Available as: Workshop, Residency
Best for: 3-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
FAME Coaching and Lessons
Featuring: FAME Teaching Artists
Musicopia’s Fostering Artistry and Music Excellence (FAME) Coaching and Lessons program provides sustained, year-round music education, through small group vocal or instrumental performance coaching to supplement your school or community program’s music curriculum.
Available as: N/A
Best for: K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
GarageBand
Featuring: KYDD Lab
The GarageBand Jam Lab Band is a modern approach to musical composition and ensemble playing that also inspires student’s creativity and digital device prowess.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: 3-12 After School/Community
Indonesian Dance from the Island of Bali
Featuring: Modero & Company
Learn traditional Indonesian from the island of Bali with Modero. Participants will learn the basic postures, hand and eye movements of a classical welcome dance. Sinta will be working closely with students to transfer her energy and knowledge as the master artist through intricate choreography accompanied by mesmerizing gamelan sound.
Available as: Assembly, Residency, Workshop
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Jazzin' It Up with the Harp
Featuring: Gloria Galante Ensemble
A versatile ensemble featuring instruments such as saxophone, piano, bass, and drum set performs alongside the harp, giving jazz favorites from Somewhere over the Rainbow to Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man a whole new unique sound.
Available as: Assembly
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Journey into Middle Eastern Music
Featuring: Spice Route Ensemble
Students are guided through the music and culture of the Middle East while learning the importance of understanding and appreciating diverse cultures.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Lyrics & Songwriting
Featuring: Minas
Patricia King and Orlando Haddad work with students on the creative process of songwriting. By writing their own lyrics and setting these to music, students explore poetic meters and how these relate to musical pulse and rhythm as well as how compositional forms relate to poetic forms, finding commonalities between musical and poetic structures.
Available as: Workshop, Residency
Best for: 3-5 6-8 9-12
Magic and Magnificence of the Harp
Featuring: Gloria Galante
This intimate solo harp program features harps from around the world, a slide presentation, and a mini-harp lesson. Music from Baroque to modern makes this a complete experience, as the audience sees first-hand how this ancient instrument produces its unforgettable sounds. This program concludes by bringing the audience into 20th and 21st century jazz!
Available as: Assembly
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 Special Needs
Making Modern Noise
Featuring: Outside Sound
Jazz artist, Chris Coyle, and his ensemble open students’ eyes to the world of a professional composer, improviser, and songwriter while highlighting the ability of visual art to influence and inspire original music.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Opera: From Sound to Stage
Featuring: Poor Richard's Opera
The cast of Poor Richard’s Opera delights audiences through the performance of an abridged opera from one of the following categories: Baroque, Mozart or Rossini, Romantic, or American contemporary. Each opera includes a narrator who explains voice parts, singing styles, character choices, and discusses composer biographies.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: K-5 6-8 9-12
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Origins of Hip Hop Culture and Song Writing
Featuring: Khemist
The Origins program will teach students about the history of Hip Hop Culture and all of the ways that writing (Language Arts proficiencies) functions within the culture through rapping, vernacular language, songwriting, visual art and poetry.
Available as: Residency
Best for: 6-8
Percussion 'Round the World
Featuring: Phil-A- Rhythm
Using a world map, the audience is taken on a musical journey, traveling from country and country to explore various cultures through percussion instruments.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Philly Loves Jazz
Featuring: Andy Blackman Hurwitz + the Philly Loves Jazz Orchestra
Andy uses his books as jump-off points into simple lessons in music, jazz, history and writing. The books can be curated to emphasize Latin (Salsa); Hip-Hop or Jazz. Multi-media presentation includes actual Musicians, Youtube Videos and his live story-telling and guiding.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: K-5
Recycled Sounds
Featuring: Dendê Macêdo
This performance and workshop program, by renowned percussionist Dendê Macêdo, uses instruments he made from found materials to deliver a message about protecting our environment through reuse and recycling.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Shake, Scrape and Strike
Featuring: Phil-A-Rhythm
Phil-A-Rhythm demonstrates the basic and exotic qualities of instruments in the percussion family, along with their origins and unique sounds, while exploring a wide range of new rhythms and melodic forms.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Songwriting & Recording Residency
Featuring: Alex and the Kaleidoscope
As host of the Emmy® Award winning children’s TV show, Alex & the Kaleidoscope, Alex Mitnick’s unique approach to music education combines singing, movement, percussion and songwriting into a stimulating and fun musical experience that leaves participants energized and inspired. Each student participating in the program will have hands-on experience in the composition, recording and performance of an original song.
Available as: Residency
Best for: 3-5 6-8 Special Needs
Son Jarocho: Afroindigenous music and dance from the Gulf Coast of Mexico
Featuring: Ximena Violante
Students would learn about the history and basic music, song, and dance of son jarocho, a tradition from the Gulf Coast of Mexico that has Southern Spanish, North and West African, and indigenous roots.
Available as: Residency, Workshop, Assembly
Best for: K-12
Steel Pan of the Caribbean
Featuring: Phil-A- Rhythm
This program introduces students to the history and the sociological context in which the instrument was created. The history will include notable events such as the banning of public performance on drums, the rise and fall of tamboo bamboo, the creation of the first steel pan and the role of US Naval bases in its evolution.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Strings 'Round the World
Featuring: Barnett String Quartet
This inventive program offers a sampling of the unique and wonderful music from the many cultures that come together in the United States of America. Using a world map, the audience is guided on a trip around the musical world that is lively, interactive, and educational.
Available as: Assembly
Best for: K-5 6-8 Special Needs
Voices
Featuring: Alexandra Day
Vocal skill building takes place in a nurturing environment, as students learn about melody, harmony, projection, and other key vocal concepts. Repertoire ranges from western art music to contemporary music, allowing students to experience various vocal styles.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
Voices and Bucket Drumming
Featuring: Alexandra Day and Leon Jordan, Sr.
Spanning genres including jazz, Caribbean, traditional choral, and current pop, this highly interactive program presents many types of rhythms, techniques, percussion instruments, vocal styles, as well as historical and cultural contexts.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Best for: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
West African Drum and Dance
featuring: Troupe Da Da Ensemble
Exploring some of the ways African Diaspora performing arts practices are used to affirm community, communicate values and inspire dialogue, this program includes storytelling, dance, mask dance, music and song from Mali, Guinea, The Ivory Coast and Ghana.
Available as: Assembly, Workshop, Residency
Grades: ELC K-5 6-8 9-12 Special Needs
We The People
an apolitical musical journey through the US Constitution
We the People is an apolitical musical journey through the US Constitution, the three branches of government, our 45 presidents and a brief education on the founding fathers of our great country. Inspired by and modeled after the style of Broadway's Hamilton, it is a historical narrative brilliantly performed by singer and rapper Christian King, drummer Leon Jordan Sr. and keyboardist.
Available as: Assembly, Residency
Grades: K-5 6-8 9-12