Baton Rouge students visit the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum without ever leaving their desk

State-of-the-art distance-learning program delivers unique music education to the classroom; First offering of its kind in Louisiana

CLEVELAND – Eighth graders of Broadmoor Middle School in Baton Rouge were the first students in Louisiana to have a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame educational program delivered right to their classroom. Using a high-tech, fully interactive videoconferencing system, these band and orchestra students learned ways in which classical music and rock and roll intersect. Their teacher was in Cleveland.

On Tuesday, December 4, at 1 p.m. Central Time, Jason Hanley, musicologist and education department manager at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, was beamed into Broadmoor Middle School for the hour-long music education session.

Hanley talked to the 20 or so middle schoolers about how the classical orchestra has played an important role in rock and roll culture in a course called Ambassador to the Orchestra: The Arranger in Rock and Roll. The students were able to ask questions and interact with Hanley as he taught. They also listened to and examined the music of the Beatles, Dusty Springfield and Metallica, and they viewed exclusive interview clips with arrangers. The class concluded with the students helping to arrange a piece of music using computer music software, after which they got to hear the results of their work.

This innovative class is part of On the Road, the Rock Hall’s award-winning distance-learning program that reaches fourth- through 12th-grade students all across the country and around the world. Over the past several years, the program has benefited hundreds students in roughly two dozen U.S. states and it has reached classrooms in Mexico, Canada and Australia.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is at the forefront of bringing popular culture into the classroom. The Museum’s state-of-the-art videoconferencing technology allows it to offer incredible educational experiences, teaching children and young adults the ways in which music has played a part in some of the most important social, cultural and political issues in modern history.

For more details about the Rock Hall’s educational programs, visit www.rockhall.com/student.

About the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is the nonprofit organization that exists to educate visitors, fans and scholars from around the world about the history and continuing significance of rock and roll music. It carries out this mission both through its operation of a world-class museum that collects, preserves, exhibits and interprets this art form and through its library and archives as well as its educational programs.

The Museum is open seven days a week from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. On Wednesdays the Museum is open until 9 p.m. Museum admission is $20 for adults, $14 for seniors (60+), $11 for children (9-12) and children under 8 and Museum members are free. When you become a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum, the world of rock and roll becomes yours to explore. Call 216.515.1939 for information on becoming a member. For general inquiries, please call 216.781.ROCK. 
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