In 1966, actor Richard Dreyfuss received both Golden Globe and Oscar nominations for his starring role in the drama Mr. Holland's Opus. The film focuses on the evolution of Dreyfuss's character, Glenn Holland, over a thirty-one year period from a struggling composer, who takes on a job as a high school music teacher simply for a source of income, to an inspiring and highly influential figure who uses music to improve the lives of his students at JFK High School. Though few would argue against the assertion that music plays a vital role in the lives of today's youth, many people, young and old, devalue the tremendous benefits that a formal music education provides for children, as indicated by school board decisions throughout the country to eliminate music teachers as a part of millions of dollars in budget cuts.
However, five professional musicians, Elaine Sargous, Penny Fischer, Katherine Collier, Virginia Weckstrom-Kantor, and Wendy Bloom, did recognize the importance of music instruction and founded Ann Arbor's School for the Performing Arts in 1991. Although membership within the school as a whole is increasing, particularly, the school's four youth orchestras, according to their founder E. Daniel Long, are experiencing a sharp growth in membership, challenging the assumption that increasingly fewer numbers of pre-teens and teenagers are listening to and performing classical music.
This critique suggests that, perhaps, the problem is not a common distaste for classical music among Generation Y, but a lack of quality resources, educators, and music education programs to cultivate a generation of classical music listeners. It will explore the presence of classical music in the lives of the youth through the Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts and delve into nationwaide efforts like VH1's Save the Music Foundation that hope to ensure that young people receive proper music instruction.