Thursday, July 21, 2011

The National Jazz Museum in Harlem and the World Wide Workshop team up for new youth program that blends music and digital literacy


The National Jazz Museum in Harlem (NJMH) announces a new partnership with the World Wide Workshop to teach youth jazz and digital literacy through Globaloria, the first-of-its-kind youth network for learning how to make videogames.

Starting this summer and throughout the school year, NJMH will run a series of a new kind of creative education workshops for youth ages 13-19. The workshops are led by 
Jonathan Batiste, a music curator at the museum, who comes from a celebrated family of musicians in New Orleans.

At 24, Batiste has performed in 40 countries and collaborated with Prince, Jimmy Buffet and Wynton Marsalis. He is a Juilliard graduate, a Movado Future Legend award recipient and the youngest ever Steinway Performing Artist. He is featured on HBO’s “Treme” and has conducted clinics and master classes worldwide.

“In my Globaloria workshops I want to collaborate with teens from Harlem and other NYC communities to create games and programs about the history of Jazz,” reflects Jonathan Batiste. “The experience is going to be super-interactive, with live performances and trips to historic jazz locations in Harlem to give us ideas about games and programs we want to design.”

“The special program we designed for Batiste blends jazz music appreciation and game design skills in order to empower kids from the Harlem community to figure out digital computational skills and jazz history at the same time. That’s how they get engaged these days,” says Dr. Idit Harel Caperton, president & founder of the World Wide Workshop.

“Jon Batiste and his Band will be an integral part of the learning experience,” adds Loren Schoenberg, NJMH executive director. “Our overall objective is to create a fun learning space inside our museum, and get Jon and the kids to create a playful game together, that can teach young people and adults alike, with captivating ideas and designs, and good facts about jazz.”

This week, NJMH launched the first Globaloria-Jazz Summer Workshop. Batiste and his young mentees formed a game-design team. Guided by the World Wide Workshop team of experts and the Globaloria digital curriculum, they’ll work together 3-hours daily in creative sessions straight through mid-August.

They’ll listen to and play jazz, and at the same time, learn how to imagine, research, design, and develop their ideas into an interactive game demo with music and animations. On the final day of the workshop, they will present their vision to a live audience, including their parents.

Later, during the school year, they’ll have the opportunity to complete and publish their games online, with the support of professional Flash and game design experts from the World Wide Workshop. 3-4 such Globaloria-Jazz Workshops are planned for 2011-12.

Press Contact: Jim Eigo, jazzpromo@earthlink.net
www.jazzpromoservices.com

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