MUSIC - ECOLOGY - EDUCATION - ACTION!
Rock the Salish Sea tours to cities nested around the precious inland ocean.
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Voices of Nature Programs are produced by the Artist Response Team, headed up by Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright and their band, The Wilds!
Voices of Nature programs come in a multitude of different themes including Up Your Watershed!, Water For Life, Rock the Salish Sea! and Good Medicine Songs.
The Voices Of Nature School Music Program draws on a library of eco-songs created by ART since 1989–songs about oceans, rivers, forests, bears, salmon, climate change, endangered species, recycling and related social issues. Kids invariably love the songs and sing them with all their hearts!
Voices Of Nature is an integrated, cross-curricular, project-based approach to ecological learning through music. ART provides customized rehearsal CDs; students learn songs over 6-12 weeks. Holly Arntzen and Kevin Wright arrive in the school for a 3-day Artist In Residency to rehearse with students. Students write about the issues raised in the songs, and what they believe people can do to help. The culmination is a professional concert for families and friends, where every child is put in a leadership role to sing out and speak up for nature!
ART has developed award-winning, music-based Educators’ Handbooks that provide activities in many subjects that are linked to the song lyrics and fulfill Prescribed Learning Outcomes. Some handbooks and CDs are available in English and French.
A brief introduction into the world of Voices of Nature.
School music program and TV shoot about water conservation, called Water For Life. Filmed in Edmonton in 2015 at the 2500-seat Jubilee Auditorium.
“Watching Holly and Kevin work with 200 students at a practice is an awesome experience. Within minutes they have all of the students eating out of their hand, creating, revising, risking and loving every moment of it. They make a fantastic team. Holly calmly demands that the students reach for the best quality performance possible, while Kevin drives them up into an insane level of enthusiasm.”
Brian Pritchard, Grade 3/4 teacher, Kispiox Elementary, Kispiox, BC
“The Voices of Natures project and the school tour in particular, provided a valuable link between elementary school children, their teachers and families and the City’s EcoVision Go Green! Its Our Nature campaign.”
Brenda Osborne, former Director, Community Programs, Office of the Environment and Energy, City of Edmonton
“It’s been two weeks since you left our school and your beautiful songs are still ringing in our hallways. WOW! What a tremendous impact your Voices of Nature program has made on our students, both in song and in their thinking. I’ve heard more mature, thought-evoking conversations in the past three weeks then I’ve heard in my entire teaching career.”
Katherine Key, Music Specialist, Watson Road Elementary, Kelowna, BC