PHOENIX (January 4, 2021) – The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) is pleased to announce new virtual field trip and Artist Residency offerings now available for spring 2021. The immediate success of MIM’s virtual field trip and Artist Residency video collections this past fall revealed the urgent need for standards-based, quality online programming to support educators and engage students. Public schools and school districts representing more than 1 million students nationally and internationally received access to fall offerings, which included the popular Musical Menagerie and Discovery virtual field trips. MIM’s virtual Artist Residency provided students with an interactive, informative, and fun virtual concert, in addition to the chance to directly interact with performers. These virtual programs provided at-home learners around the world with essential access to music.

Joining the virtual Discovery and Musical Menagerie Tours this spring is MIM’s newest virtual field trip, a STEM-based learning experience for students in grades K–8 designed to explore how musical instruments are made and how they work. Grounded in Arizona K–12 and Next Generation Science Standards, the collection includes a MIM orientation video, seven inquiry-based tour videos, an educator guide, and student activity sheets. With more than 80 total minutes of content examining the relationships between music and science, the tour videos combine inquiry, hands-on exploratory investigation, and learning extensions. Embedded hands-on activities promote critical thinking about STEM concepts related to amplitude, frequency, wavelength, and speed in sound waves, industrial design in instruments, and other fundamentals of sound.

“Science is all about understanding the way the world works and creating new knowledge, and this desire to understand is also an essential part of being human. It helps us to be really creative with the types of sounds that we can create—whether it’s getting the right kind of wood and strings for your guitar or modifying the circuitry on your synthesizer—it all comes back to the principles of science! And the beautiful thing about both music and science is that they exist everywhere, for everyone to enjoy,” says virtual field trip contributor and Arizona State University physics demonstration specialist Don Balanzat.

A new virtual Artist Residency concert featuring rapper and former middle school teacher Raheem Jarbo (a.k.a. Mega Ran) is now also available to educators and students. Joined by dancers Leah Roman and Andrea “Rae Rae” Pentecostes from Jukebox Dance Studio, local visual artist Kris Rhymes, and music industry entrepreneur Michael “Felix” Gamarano, Mega Ran brings the diversity of hip hop to life in a prerecorded, high-energy performance in the MIM Music Theater. The program features original music, iconic, pop-culture influenced dance moves, and an exploration of core elements of the hip hop genre. The Artist Residency collection includes an educator guide and pre- and post-concert activities. Two optional live artist Q&A sessions via Zoom are also available.

“Music is so important to creativity; it is so important for anybody to be able to listen to a song and feel a feeling. For that reason, music is probably the most powerful thing there is,” says Mega Ran.

Band teacher Julia Georges was one of the many educators across the country who utilized MIM’s fall virtual programs in her online classroom at Osborn Middle School in Phoenix, Arizona. Georges’s students have been learning online since March 2020.

“The [fall semester] virtual Artist Residency was so much fun. My students really loved the live question and answer session—what a treat! As an educator, I loved the whole experience. The pre-performance materials were very thorough and interactive. The performance itself was educational, with moments along the way to explain to students what exactly they were observing, and why certain things were significant. It was so much more than just watching videos. And, most importantly, it was fun. If students are having fun, they’re learning,” says Georges.

MIM’s curator of education, Katherine Palmer, has been instrumental in producing and shaping MIM’s virtual education offerings. MIM is thrilled to announce that Palmer will begin a one-year Gretsch Fellowship in Children’s Music at the Fred Rogers Center in January 2021. The Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, was established in 2003 to extend the legacy of Fred Rogers and provide assistance to those who care for, educate, and raise children. She holds degrees from the University of Miami (BM) and Arizona State University (MM, MA, and DMA). One of two inaugural Gretsch fellows, Palmer will explore materials in the Fred Roger Center’s archives to study the ways children may build empathy through music.

MIM’s virtual field trips and virtual Artist Residency are made possible by generous donors, including:
The Molly Blank Fund
Donald W. Collier Charitable Trust II
KPMG
Susan Shanbrom-Krabbe & Moe Krabbe
Meyerson Family Foundations
The Moca Fund
MUFG Union Bank, N.A.
PetSmart
Larry Polhill
The Revada Foundation of the Logan Family
For a full list, click here.

MIM believes that music is a gateway to understanding people and places, and exposure to a variety of music making, musical instruments, and people fosters an appreciation for diverse cultures. For more details about virtual education programs, visit MIM.org.

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About MIM
The Musical Instrument Museum (MIM) enriches our world by collecting, preserving, and making accessible an astonishing variety of musical instruments and performance videos from every country in the world. MIM offers guests a welcoming and fun experience, incomparable interactive technology, dynamic programming, and exceptional musical performances. MIM fosters appreciation of the world’s diverse cultures by showing how we innovate, adapt, and learn from each other to create music—the language of the soul. To learn more about MIM, visit MIM.org.

Find MIM on Facebook: Facebook.com/MIMphx
Twitter and Instagram: @MIMphx

Media Contact
Johann Warnholtz
Media Relations Specialist
Johann.Warnholtz@MIM.org
480.245.6953

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