Kevin Slick, with the Free-Strings bluegrass education program for schools, reports from Virginia: “We originally proposed providing 40 schools with free access to the online curriculum that provides a gateway for middle and high school orchestras to incorporate bluegrass, folk, and roots music into their classrooms. The curriculum ‘speaks the language’ of music educators, combining the kinds of notation they are most familiar with alongside learning by ear and improvising, more commonly used in the bluegrass world.”
Kevin and program creator Annie Savage, Ph.D., are happy to report they have exceeded their original goal of 40 participating schools. “Once we started getting the curriculum out to schools,” Kevin said, “we found that the easiest way to continue was to dismantle the subscription billing system. As positive feedback started coming in, we adjusted our website to make the Free-Strings curriculum available to anyone. At present, the Free-Strings curriculum has been made available to all middle and high schools in Virginia. Thanks so much for your support!”
Free Strings received a 2025 project grant from the IBMA Foundation.
RETURN to the January 2026 issue of The Cornerstone.
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