Brandee Younger

Spring is here!  It seems that everyone has been working like crazy around here and harps are back in style (if they really ever left…).  Orchestral & chamber concerts, recording sessions, pop performances & tours, club dates and lots of harp students. It has been quite difficult to find a harpist here in NY to sub for anything lately.  It’s raining work and things are going great!!

Or…are they?

About a month ago, a dear friend and fellow harpist called and let me know that she would no longer have her job at the performing arts secondary school where she currently works–she and a bunch of other of her colleagues.

Then, last week I received an email in which the subject read  “Urgent: all 300 fine arts teachers laid off in Detroit” with a letter asking for help to save the arts in Detroit’s public school system.  This is a school system with a rich, rich, rich musical history.  Their school system has produced some of the best musicians and popular artists.  Also, beginning in 1925, Cass Technical High School has the oldest ongoing harp program in a public school here in the states.

This has been a problem for quite some time here in the United States.  I still cant understand why the arts are always first to go.  I first learned of the issue as a teenager, in 1997 when every time I turned on the television, I’d see a VH-1 commercial for their “Save the Music Foundation”.  Then, I learned that my very own school district was in danger as well.

Where would many of us busy, working harpists be today if our schools hadn’t had music?  What can we all do to help?