From December 7th through 11th, K-2 classes from Chatham, Beaufort and Effingham counties bus to the Trustees Theater in downtown Savannah for semester-end concerts with 2015-16 Musical Explorers artists. The concerts take place at 10:15am and 12:15pm each day, including J.J. Collins performing musical theatre selections, Laiken Williams and her band performing soul music and T’Monde from Lafayette, Louisiana playing traditional Cajun music, all hosted by Natasha Drena as Melody. Through a curriculum integrated into regular classroom instruction, the students have learned the songs and backgrounds of these artists and musical styles, making these concerts the place in which the curriculum comes alive on stage. Members of the media are invited to attend.

Musical Explorers is a music education program developed in partnership with Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. Savannah Music Festival has created a new multimedia curriculum that is being taught in area classrooms. Originally designed as a program that provides historical, cultural and geographical knowledge about the various communities of New York’s five boroughs, Musical Explorers has been adapted by SMF to apply similar lessons, regional music styles and learning practices to the Georgia coast and South Carolina Lowcountry. For more information, or to preview new online content, visit www.savannahmusicfestival.org/musicalexplorers.