Yale Selects FGO to Receive Prestigious Award

Congratulations to our Director of Education, Cerise Sutton, this amazing news! Yesterday afternoon it was announced that Florida Grand Opera and Miami-Dade County Public Schools were selected to be recognized at Yale School of Music’s inaugural Music Education Partnership Awards this June!

“I cannot thank the Yale Symposium enough. It is such an honor to be selected for this award,” says Cerise.

“As one of Miami-Dade County Public Schools’ Partners in Excellence," she continues, "Florida Grand Opera is committed to doing its part to support music education. While the arts continue to be marginalized in public schools, FGO fills in the gap, helping to ensure that local students still have access to quality arts programs.”

A program within FGO and MDCPS’s partnership that was highlighted was “OPERA LAB: a laboratory of learning through opera.” This 10 month in-school residency program applies the topics taught in traditional, academic subjects through a more creative medium. Throughout their demonstrations in several MDCPS locations, Sutton and Kevin G. Mynatt, FGO’s Director of Production, stress the importance of basic academic subjects—such as math, history, and art—as they pertain to building scenery and props for the stage.

FGO and MDCPS’s Arts & Education partnership was chosen from a diverse pool of applicants because it represents the characteristics of a quality program that the Yale School of Music is seeking to study and celebrate during the Yale Symposium.

Congratulations, again, to Cerise! Your efforts with Miami-Dade Public Schools are helping to create the next generation of opera-lovers!

For more information on this award, or any of FGO's education initiatives, please contact Brittany Mazzurco, Public & Media Relations Manager, at pr@fgo.org or 305.403.3282.

About the Symposium on Music in Schools Music Education Partnership Awards

Every two years, starting in 2015, the Yale School of Music invites two representatives each from about 35 successful partnerships between public school music programs and professional music organizations in the United States. Award winners are chosen by the Yale School of Music based on the artistic and philosophical values represented by programs for children that utilize the best music resources in the community while ensuring quality music curricula in a public school setting.

The successful applicants receive all-expenses paid travel for two representatives to New Haven for the Symposium and national recognition as Distinguished Music Educators. FGO will be represented by Sutton and MDCPS will be represented by ‎District Supervisor of Performing Arts, Bryan Petorak. The symposium will take place June 4-7 in New Haven, Connecticut.