The Inspire Arts & Music Programs
Great East Festivals – A New England-based program, our events are non-competitive elementary, middle, and high school music festivals and are geared to musical organizations of all sizes, grades and ability levels. In 2013, Great East hosted 35 events, 425 school music ensembles and served over 17,000 students. Each festival includes both education and performance opportunities in a non-competitive setting, and are geared to bring out the best in all performers. The centerpiece of Great East Festivals events are clinics where music professionals spend quality time interacting with performing groups.
Boston Crusaders Drum & Bugle Corps – A internationally known, world class elite performing ensemble, consisting of 150 young men and women between the ages of 16 and 22. The Crusaders draw a national membership and tour the country every summer competing for the Drum Corps International World Championship.
Blessed Sacrament Color Guard- An internationally known, world class performing arts ensemble participating in WGI Sport of the Arts World Championships. A member of the NESBA circuit, Blessed Sacrament (also known as SAC) is over 70 years strong as an organization. SAC traces its origin back to the 1930′s when a local parish all-female drill team formed a performance group in the Cambridgeport area of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
HYPE- Hyde Park Youth Percussion Ensemble- Partnering with the Hyde Park Community Center in Hyde Park, MA, Inspire Arts & Music has launched a new program called HYPE (Hype Park Youth Percussion Ensemble). The class will be directed by Ben Paulding, an American percussionist who extensively lived in Kumasi, Ghana, drumming on national television for the Ghanaian President and the country’s top traditional chiefs and queen-mothers. In West Africa, Ben had over 200 performances with internationally acclaimed drum and dance ensembles including the Centre for National Culture, the Ashanti King’s Fontomfrom Ensemble, and the Nsuase Kete Group.
HYPE was designed to explore different cultures, music and instruments from around the world and is combined with the students’ coursework in social studies, math, science, and language arts. For example, students will become familiar with mathematical concepts through the interpretation and modeling of complex rhythms and polyrhythms and will learn how musical tones can be expressed as whole numbers and fractions. Through this program, children are encouraged to listen, interpret, and communicate as they transfer aural and written drumming instructions into their own playing. IAM’s goal with the World Percussion Program is to bring the joy of drumming to children of the Hyde Park Community Center, regardless of economic background, in order to help them better understand the world around them.