!["I like it a lot," said McKenna of Cleveland Heights. "I just kind of want to calm down." [Mary Fecteau / Ideastream]](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/da7c037/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1000x563+0+0/resize/840x472!/format/webp/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Flegacy%2Fuploads%2F2021%2F8%2F31%2FMcKenna.jpg)
The Cleveland Orchestra is trying to help area school kids find calm and focus with a program that pipes in classical music before class starts. Due to the disruptions of COVID-19, the orchestra announced its Mindful Music Moments program is now available to all Northeast Ohio schools for free.
As the orchestra’s V.P. of Education and Community Engagement, Joan Katz Napoli said it was an easy decision.
“There was a fee that was charged for each school, and during COVID, more than a year ago now, many schools just didn't have the budget to participate because they were having to spend their resources on PPE or virtual,” she said. “And we thought, ‘that's crazy.’ We should just make it available for free, because it's such a unique resource, especially because it allowed students and teachers to utilize the program wherever learning was taking place this past year. We had this huge uptick in registrations when we announced that it would be free, which said to us, people need help.”
Joan Katz Napoli [Mary Fecteau / Ideastream]
Napoli added that the jump in registrations reinforced the orchestra’s decision to make the program free, even though it’s getting no additional funding to support that move.
“We all know all of our lives were disrupted, but especially for kids,” she said. “And I think anything that you can do to provide a tool for them to self-regulate, to calm their minds, and so forth, is such a great pause and everybody needs that. You know, one thing that we did hear from teachers and parents was ‘we needed this as much as the kids did.’”
Corrine is another Mindful Music Moments fan. [Mary Fecteau / Ideastream]
