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MAY 2004

STRINGS:

Let the Video Stream with Violinist Mark O'Connor
by Joan Baum. Ph.D

It isn't the typical press conference that opens with a well-known musician playing a toe-tapping folk waltz, but when Grammy Award-winning violinist and composer Mark O'Connor picked up his fiddle recently for a live webcast to help inaugurate a new nationwide digital arts education partnership, he became “content” as well as spokesman. An ardent supporter of arts education, O'Connor has been for years involved with Arts4All, a leading provider of digital arts, arts education and entertainment that was founded by another violinist—the world famous Pinchas Zukerman, along with the chairman of the Board of McDonalds Restaurants (Hong Kong). In partnering with United Learning (UL), a division of Discovery Communications, Inc. (Discovery Channel, and more), which is an Internet-based video streaming “on demand” or real-time delivery system (video, audio, multimedia), Arts4All wants to ensure that audiences around the globe will have access to an even more extensive video world of art—classes, courses, world-class performances, archive data bases, interactive events, including video conferencing, and live demos.

His involvement with arts education began, O'Connor said, because he had a hard time when he was a kid getting such an education, though he was lucky to have supportive parents. An incredibly busy artist, both performing and as co-founder of the international Mark O'Connor Fiddle Camp and Strings conferences and camps (not to mention the numerous other professional activities that claim his attention), O'Connor sees the Arts4All/UL alliance as an “extraordinary opportunity” to reach schools and students in underserved areas who otherwise would not have access to the partnership's powerful, technology-driven offerings. The press conference conveyed the impression of the democratic goal at the heart of the collaboration. As though to underscore this theme, O'Connor appeared without make-up, and even his fiddle had a slightly worn, working-class appearance, a not inappropriate look for the founder of the newly formed chamber ensemble, Appalachia Waltz Trio (featuring a cello and violist as well). After all, arts for all really means, for everyone.

Also in attendance at the press conference was Arts4All CEO Richard Humphrey, who said he was “thrilled” to be working with United Learning. Arts4All, he noted, started out as a series of master classes but with affiliations such as UL would be expanding art resources, an area that teachers nationwide have indicated is their number-one need. The history of innovative educational technology shows that medium seems to evolve faster than message. By providing original content—eleven video programs have already been developed by Arts4All—this partnership seeks to ensure that form follows function, and that arts programming is not viewed as add-on. As Beth Ida Stern, VP of United Learning points out, “students participating in arts programs in school do better academically overall.” And as Mark O'Connor has said many times, “I am a believer in the inclusion of music in traditional curricula...we all realize that technology, used properly, enriches the educational experience tremendously.” It would appear that Arts4All and United Learning have taken up Picasso's challenge: “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”#

See www.arts4all.com and www. Unitedlearning.com for further information.

Education Update, Inc.
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