Once a month the Arts Initiative hosts a lunch with an influential member of the arts community in New York City to foster dialogue and interaction with the arts at Columbia. This time around the guest of honor was Nancy Shankman, the former director of arts education for the New York City Public Schools and currently a graduate adviser in the Department of Music Education Program at NYU Steinhardt.
I was particularly excited about this month’s lecturer because I am an instructor for Musical Mentors Collaborative (MMC), a nonprofit started by Columbia and Barnard students that provides free weekly private instrumental and voice lessons for students at local public elementary schools, and MMC invited Shankman to participate so that the various instructors involved with Musical Mentors could benefit from her vast experience and knowledge of music education.
Despite the relatively small number of attendees (around 20 odd people, with some arriving late or leaving early), Shankman started off the informal conversation by “being a teacher” and encouraging everyone to sit in the front of the lecture hall so that we could more easily engage in dialogue. Participants submitted questions in advance, so Shankman answered the question, “what made you decide to go into music education?” first by showing us a brief YouTube video:
Landfill Harmonic
