Agency Description: VocalEssence celebrates the vocal experience through concerts, commissions, and community engagement programs. The organization has been internationally recognized for its innovative exploration of music. VocalEssence, previously named the Plymouth Music Series, was founded in 1969 by Philip Brunelle. Plymouth Music Series changed its name to VocalEssence in 2002 to fully embrace their mission to explore music for voice.

Project Description: VocalEssence implemented their ¡Cantare! program in order to introduce Mexican culture and music to a broad audience in the Twin Cities metro area. As part of the program, three Mexican composers came to the Twin Cities: one composer met with four elementary school classrooms, another met with three high school choruses, and the last worked with the St. Olaf College Viking Choir and a church choral group. Each composer created a new choral piece for the classrooms or choruses, which were performed in May of 2007 at Orchestra Hall. VocalEssence continues to implement the iCantare! program around the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area.

ACET services: ACET was contracted to facilitate the development of a logic model, develop a brief age-appropriate survey for the students involved in the project, develop a focus group script for the teachers, and facilitate the focus group at the end of the project.

Date of Service: 2007-2008