Iitaohkanao’pi - The Meeting Place Project: an alternative approach to young people’s concerts

Abstract

This study explored alternative approaches to young people’s concerts aimed at extending musical appreciations and cultural understandings while promoting interest in concert attendance among upper elementary students. The project, an artistic and cross-cultural collaboration grounded in a spirit of mutual respect, consisted of three components: (1) concert; (2) instructional unit; and (3) action research. The concert was a ‘meeting place’ of contemporary art music and contemporary native-American music; ancient Blackfoot mythology and contemporary dance and new media; and traditional Blackfoot dress and artifacts and those of contemporary North America. The instructional unit was designed to enable students to make connections between materials and processes used in the creation of the concert and those experienced in music classes. Research findings indicated that response to the concert was positive and the project was highly successful in promoting cultural understanding; however, data regarding the efficacy of the instructional unit were inconclusive.