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Learning Curve
On NJN’s State of the Arts
Friday, September 21 at 8:30 pm; and Wednesday, September 26 at 11:30 pm
STATEWIDE – This episode of State of the Arts features great teachers and their students. Learning Curve goes from a master class with a legendary cellist, students working with professionals in a Broadway-style production of “Carousel,” and an artist working with kids in an innovative after school program. Learning Curve airs on Friday, September 21 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, September 26 at 11:30 pm. State of the Arts marks twenty-five years on NJN this year. The series has earned 26 Regional Emmy Awards, including New York Emmy Awards in 2007 and 2005, and a 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy.
• Master Class
State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz speaks with the renowned cellist Jeffrey Solow about what it takes to be a teacher; what he learned from his own teacher, the great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky; and how he balances his performing career with teaching. Viewers will see Solow teaching a master class sponsored by the Princeton Symphony Orchestra, coaching his college students at Temple University, and in rehearsals and performance playing the Shostakovich Cello Concerto with the Princeton Symphony. Solow maintains a busy schedule traveling throughout the United States and Canada, Europe, Latin America, and the Far East as recitalist, soloist, chamber musician, and teacher. His concerto appearances include performances of more than 20 different works with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Japan Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Milwaukee Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the American Symphony. He has been a guest artist at many national and international chamber music festivals.
• Carousel
Students from 11 different counties in New Jersey converged upon Newark this summer to put on a show. Young actors, dancers, orchestra musicians, and stage techs ranging in age from six to 23 auditioned for the chance to be part of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center’s (NJPAC) Summer Musical Program and get a first-rate educational experience. According to director Cynthia Meryl, it’s the closest thing to a real Broadway experience you can get as a student. This year’s production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classical musical, “Carousel” marked the tenth anniversary of the NJPAC’s Summer Musical Program, done in collaboration with the New Jersey Youth Theatre Company. State of the Arts producer Eric Schultz visits the production in rehearsal, backstage and on opening night and speaks to the students and the seasoned theatrical pros running the show. Meryl, who has directed these summer productions from the start, obviously has the admiration and affection from the entire cast and crew. Schultz also talks to graduates of the Summer Musical Program who have gone on to become professionals, including Melissa Miller, who since graduating form the NJPAC summer program has appeared on Broadway, on the NBC television program Ed, and numerous other films and theatrical productions in New York and New Jersey.
• After School Artist
The Community Artists Residency Training Series (CARTS) takes artists out of their studios and brings them to a more central role in society. In partnership with the Institute for Arts and Humanities Education, Rutgers University has developed a statewide artists-in-residency program. Artists work in many different community settings, from senior citizen centers and AIDS hospices, to teen detention centers and after school programs. Key to the program is the presence of artist-mentors who train new artists to work with members of the community. State of the Arts producer Susan Wallner visits a CARTS after school program in Trenton, New Jersey where Trenton painter Ricardo Coke is a resident artist. Coke says that his art is a mixture of music and color (he is also a trumpet player). In his first year working with students in the Cadwalader Elementary School after school program, they created a mural of a neighborhood that had hidden guns woven into the otherwise peaceful and colorful scene. These guns reflected the constant pressure of street violence in these children’s lives, many of whom knew people who had been killed. This year’s mural, “The Love Train,” focused on the value of working together. Also interviewed for the story is the director of CARTS, Isabelle Nazario, Associate Vice President for Academic and Public Partnerships in the Arts and Humanities at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey; and Tina Blackledge, director of the Trenton After School Program, a private organization working with K-7 students in Trenton’s West Ward.
State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm.
The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.
Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.
NJN is available on all New Jersey cable systems, satellite systems, and Time Warner Cable channel 750 in NYC.
State of the Arts is also available via video streaming at njn.net after the original broadcast.
Additionally, the program is repeated on NJN’s JerseyVision available on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey.
(Check http://www.njn.net/digital/schedule.html for detailed listings.)
NJN – Uniquely New Jersey
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