School Assembly Program

During the 2009 Festival every child enrolled in the Grand County School District including the Moab Community School, had the opportunity to attend an in-school Assembly based on one of the Festival concert programs.

During the first week of the 2009 Festival, Grand County Middle and High School students learned about Cuban music from the classical and jazz who performed in the two Fiesta Cubana concerts. Hosted by the renowned author and music educator, Jamie Bernstein, the assemblies featured Music Director Michael Barrett, classical pianist Jorge-Luis Prats, and the members of the Chuchito Valdes Quartet:  Chuchito Valdes, piano, Emilio Valdes, drums, Sandy Perez, congas and Rene Camach, bass.  A week later K-6 children learned about the traditional music and instruments of Scandinavia in a program based on the Norse by Norse(West) concert curated by Paul Woodiel, who performed on the Hardanger fiddle and was joined by Sandra Wong, nyckelharpa, Chrisopher Layer, flute and Greg Heffernan, cello.

Grand County School District teachers had the opportunity to further engage these programs through two exclusive web training tools designed to help integrate assembly materials into their work in the classroom.  Teachers also had the opportunity to attend actual Festival programs featuring assembly artists for free.

Past Assembly Programs

2008
Paquito D'Rivera, Pablo Aslan, Raoul Jaurena & Emilio Solla in
Tango - The Dangerous Dance
Paul Woodiel, Basya Schechter, Matthias Kunzli, Christopher Layer & Greg Heffernan in
Crypto Judaica

2007
Jamie Bernstein & Marco Granados in Sonidos Latinos
Michael Barrett & Festival Musicians in The Orchestra as a Team

2006
Jamie Bernstein & Friends in Mozart, You Kid You!
Paquito D'Rivera Quintet & Marco Granados in Latin Jazz

2005
Marco Granados & Un Mundo in Music of Venezuela
Paul Woodiel & Friends in Swingin' with Django

2004
At Harlem's Height
Paul Woodiel & Friends in From Greengrass to Bluegrass

2003
Paquito D'Rivera Trio
Paul Woodiel & Friends in From the French Court to the Cajun Kitchen

2002
Composers Gerald Elias and Bruce Adolphe

2001
Shanghai Quartet and Composers Chen Yi and Zhou Long