Welcome to Musical Explorers!

This curriculum is designed to connect students in grades K–2 to the diverse musical community of the Georgia and South Carolina Lowcountry as they develop listening, singing, and composing skills. The 2016-17 curriculum features artists who live in the Lowcountry and throughout the Southeast. 2016-17 also features Falu Shah, a Carnegie Hall exchange artist. Falu has been a Musical Explorer in New York City multiple times, and this will be her first visit to Savannah. Each semester culminates in an interactive concert featuring musicians from a wide variety of musical styles and from different cities and towns across the Southeast United States. The spring semester (Units 4-6) of the 2016-17 curriculum places special emphasis on international communities and styles of music that have taken root in the United States.

Musical Explorers combines skills-based and creative activities, and can be integrated into general and music classrooms. To facilitate planning, this Teacher Guide contains vocal exercises, lesson plans, activity timings, background information about musical styles and artists, and Student Guide pages. Any scripted suggestions appear in italics. In addition, the companion audio CD provides concert repertoire selections and learning tracks. All of this material is also available on our website at savannahmusicfestival.org/musicalexplorers.

Students will not only be listening to, but also performing songs with the artists during each concert. In addition, the introduction lessons provide resources for helping students develop healthy, age-appropriate vocal technique through warm-up exercises. Teachers are encouraged to use these warm-ups at the beginning of each lesson, and to practice the repertoire regularly so that students can have the fullest concert experience possible.

We hope you enjoy the journey!

Exploration

How does music help bring our community together?

Key Objectives

Musical Explorers are students and teachers who look for the answers to this question as they:

• meet singers whose music represents different musical styles and cultural communities
• sing and move to the artists’ songs
• make connections between the artists’ music, their communities, and their cultures of origin
• explore musical opposites that create the unique sound of each artist’s music