Last month by coincidence one of my student’s endeavors was highlighted in Chatter’s Friday Informer. The project is a new music ensemble comprised and run solely by teens. No one over 18 allowed.

What must we do to really make inroads into how new music is learned and appreciated beyond the concert hall?

Our schools are sorely neglecting students in how they prepare them for life after the classroom; composers, in particular, come out socially challenged, often unable to effectively promote their music or to even speak about it.

How is it that jazz has become the vehicle for the resurgence of robust music programs in the schools while classical music, and its offspring (arguably US) still find it a challenge to be seen as relevant to arts education in the United States?

I rarely see children at any of the concerts I attend.

Here are a few ideas for how to fund composers committed to writing music for young players and amateurs.

There is not a single grant that specifically provides commission funds to composers wishing to work with amateur or youth groups.

Those of us who teach are inundated with numerous requests from current and former students to write letters of recommendation for them at this time of year, as the deadlines for their applications to schools loom large.

It used to be that composers were not taken seriously if they chose to do commercial work; now the pendulum has swung and it is the professorial types who are getting the stones thrown at them.

I’ve yet to hear anyone actually go on record and identify available work that’s suitable for educating young students; for me, some shining examples are the pieces collected in Bartok’s Mikrokosmos.