Pinkerton-Interlochen Partnership: Art is in the Air

It’s only a 90-minute flight from New York to the Northwoods of Michigan, but for 26 young New York City musicians, the trip last summer was the beginning of a journey to a wider world. The students were part of the Pinkerton-Interlochen Student Fellows Scholarship program – the foundation’s four-year-old partnership with the renowned Interlochen Center for the Arts. For the next few weeks, the students participated in the immersive summer camp experience, built artistic skills and learned to master complicated compositions and rhythms on a wide range of instruments. In the process, the young musicians forged cross-cultural friendships with other talented young people from around the world.

All told, twelve New York programs have sent 91 students to, as the Center puts it, study, learn, and play “among the pines and between the lakes.”  The young New Yorkers, the vast majority with full scholarships, have come from the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Belongo/Afro Latin Jazz Alliance, Bloomingdale School of Music, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn Music School, Harmony Program, Louis Armstrong House Museum, New York Youth Symphony, Noel Pointer Foundation, Third Street Music School Settlement, UpBeat NYC, and the Youth Orchestra of St. Luke’s.

The partnership’s activities aren’t limited to summer. During the school year, a visiting teaching-artist residency brings Interlochen faculty to New York to mentor students at up a dozen Pinkerton-supported youth arts organizations. In return, NYC visiting artists conduct masterclasses at Interlochen. This year, Belongo, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, Brooklyn Music School, and Internal Creations sent teaching artists to Interlochen for the summer.

Zach O’Farril, the director of the pre-professional youth orchestra, Fat Afro Latin Jazz Cats, is one of the city artists who has conducted masterclasses at Interlochen. As he puts it: “The partnership exemplifies the global-ness of what music education can be versus the New York-ness of what music education can be.”