from the Pawtucket Times
- By JONATHAN BISSONNETTE jbissonnette@pawtuckettimes.com
- Sep 4, 2019
PAWTUCKET – When the Rhode Island Philharmonic takes to the stage constructed inside Slater Park next month, just as they have for the past 20 years, their annual Pops in the Park will be made possible thanks to the generosity of the Pawtucket Teachers’ Alliance.
Ron Beaupre, the president of the Pawtucket Teachers’ Alliance, explained that it was once again a unanimous decision among the Alliance’s 40-member executive board to donate $15,000 to bring the yearly late-summer celebration to Slater Park. Beaupre, in an interview with The Times, explained that the unanimity among the city’s educators to bring the concert to Pawtucket is indicative of the myriad benefits music can provide to local youths.
“Many of us do live here and we’re committed to the city, committed to ensuring the community is thriving, that our students are provided with opportunities they otherwise may not have gotten,” Beaupre said. “By us donating money and the unanimous vote, it shows we want to make sure this community continues to succeed in many ways, including the arts.”
The connection between the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and Pawtucket dates back about 75 years, to when the city was among the first communities in Rhode Island to create its own locally-based committee to manage all aspects of the concerts held in Pawtucket.
“When we moved to Veterans Memorial Auditorium in 1952, all those strong ties to Pawtucket came with us,” said David Beauchesne, executive director of the Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra and Music School. “The relationship’s been crucial. Education concerts started in the ’50s, every kid saw concerts and now 75 years later, we have every third-, fourth-, and fifth-grader in the city that participates in our education program and some other amazing educational programs. It’s been a relationship from the beginning and the concert in the park goes back over 20 years and it’s one major component of our long-standing and very important relationship with the city.”
Beauchesne noted that the yearly summertime celebration at Slater Park has been “great for us.”
“As much as we like performing in a concert hall, it’s really important to go out into the communities of Rhode Island and take the orchestra to people,” he said. “Going out into public parks like Slater Park, being back there is really critical to us having a strong bond and relationship with the city. It’s critical that we do that for free, so anyone in the community can come and experience a great orchestra concert.”
“On top of that, it’s just fun,” he quickly added. “We play a lot of fun music, people sometimes sing along and dance along. This year we’ll be joined by the gospel chorus from Mixed Magic Theatre … It’s just going to be a very joyful, fun, inspiring night of music-making and community.”
The ability to hold the concert for free every summer is thanks to the efforts of the Pawtucket Teachers’ Alliance, which annually defrays the cost of tickets by donating $15,000.
“It’s incredible,” Beaupre said. “Every year, they ask me to stand up and speak. I ask the Alliance to stand and wave. They are the people who are donating to bring the concert … To see them stand with faces beaming that they have a hand in this, so they could participate in their city, it’s an incredible feeling.”
The city’s commitment to the arts, Beaupre said, is apparent in the growth and evolution of arts education throughout Pawtucket’s schools including the Jacqueline M. Walsh School for the Performing and Visual Arts and Agnes E. Little Elementary School, where there is a longstanding partnership with the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School through the Victoria’s Dream Project, wherein students in third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade participate in a strings program.
“This is just another way to show that the Pawtucket Teachers’ Alliance, the teachers, education support and professionals we represent ensure a strong connection to the community and the commitment to arts education,” he said.
“There’s all kind of benefits to music education,” Beaupre later said. “Academically, it enhances mathematics, reading, and focus. Additionally, it provides students with something in some way that could be an outlet for them. They could have struggles and expressing themselves through music really opens them up. They’re expressing themselves through music, it’s incredible.”
Each year, the Philharmonic works with over 2,300 children in Pawtucket in elementary school through high school, as Beauchesne said “study after study shows that kids who get music education are better students, they do better academically and socially, more motivated to attend school, higher graduation rates, admission rates, in every possible way it shows the academic strength is strengthened by participation in music education.”
“We endeavor as the state’s largest orchestra and only community music school to narrow that opportunity gap…” Beauchesne continued. “In Pawtucket, there’s a real desire from the superintendent, mayor, teachers’ union to have access to music education. To partner with the city and collaborate with the teachers, it means something to us and means something to the children in Pawtucket to have access to those programs.”
With support from Pawtucket-based companies including Hasbro, Collette Travel, Bristol County Savings, Pawtucket Credit Union, and others, the Philharmonic has run award-winning education programs in the Pawtucket Housing Authority, Boys and Girls Club of Pawtucket, and with Pawtucket School Department’s music and classroom teachers.
“We subsidize all of that work to a great extent and provide hundreds of thousands of dollars in free value to the students,” Beauchesne said. “That’s part of the relationship, to have that reciprocated by teachers is really special and makes this a well-rounded relationship.”
This year’s show will bring the concert hall to Slater Park, Beauchesne said. The theme of the evening will be space exploration, celebrating the 50th anniversary of the lunar landing. Thus, music selections from films such as “Star Wars,” “Apollo 13,” and “2001: A Space Odyssey” can be expected.
Beaupre said it’s always a “wonderful day” when the musicians from the Rhode Island Philharmonic take the stage inside the park.
“The weather is beautiful, the fireworks are great, the music’s incredible,” he said. “It’s so nice and for me being president of the union and having connections because of the work, I walk around the park, it’s like being home.”
Economic and Cultural Affairs Officer Herb Weiss explained that former Public Works Director Jack Carney convinced then-Pawtucket Mayor James E. Doyle to “put the staff, time, and resources to bring this event into Slater Park.”
“It was providing an opportunity to residents to see first-class music at no cost. It’s been going on since 2002 and the teachers are the largest, since the inception of the Arts Festival, contributing organizational sponsor to the event. Their generous donation is bringing the Philharmonic back each year,” Weiss said.
“Bristol County Savings, after seeing large crowds coming to see the Philharmonic’s Pops every year, jumped at the opportunity to present a dazzling fireworks show after the event…” he added. “We really thank the Pawtucket Teachers’ Alliance and over 120 sponsors who have come to the plate this year to allow us to provide top-notch artistic musical events throughout the two-week Arts Festival.”
The Rhode Island Philharmonic Orchestra’s annual “Pops in the Park” performance will be held inside Slater Park on Saturday, Sept. 14 from 5:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. It will be followed by a live fireworks display.