It is a place where mathematics, physics, history, geography, language, visual arts, drama and dance live vibrantly as students focus on a rich music curriculum. Music, integrative by its very nature, cannot exist in isolation without implicit connections to other areas of inquiry. Music is frequently connected to reform movements or political causes. Music also connects us to nature and beauty and helps us to understand our moral responsibility to the preservation of the Spaceship Earth. Music is an engine of the popular culture with all of the susceptibilities of misuse through marketing and consumer supply and demand.
Music is part of everyday living for virtually every citizen in our society.
In this music classroom, there are many occasions where the unpredictable and unexpected occur. They are evocative rather than prescriptive, seek diversity rather than uniformity, and welcome ambiguity. Eisner is inviting the engagement of the soul into the classroom and teaching students to value and develop their inner lives. Recently I heard a high school choir sing Rachmaninoff's Ave Maria in the Russian language. There was a profound sense that something was working in the hearts of the performers and in the receptive spirits of the listeners that transcended the mere decoding of notes on the page.