Educational Outreach

Musica Aperta


Musica Aperta believes that every child has the right to a knowledge of music. Early exposure to music can enhance children’s artistic sensibilities and help them develop a variety of skills, from memory and organization to emotional awareness.

Musica Aperta’s educational program is produced in partnership with Education and Outreach Department of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Over the past three years, Musica Aperta has performed over 100 times for thousands of Washington D.C. public school children.

The Struggles of Mr. M


Our production, The Struggles of Mr. M, is an hour long performance/workshop that innovatively teaches music appreciation and elements of music composition to children in grades two through five. In this entertaining show, the composer, Mr. M, is having difficulties finishing a musical piece he was commissioned to write. In desperation, he turns to his two friends on stage and to the children in the audience for help. Using an excerpt from a Mozart Trio as a starting point, he draws the audience into the process of composition, asking them to making creative choices and decisions to complete the musical composition. By introducing children to a work of art in a playful, friendly and interactive way, The Struggles of Mr. M proves that art and music can be created and enjoyed by everyone.

In The Scribbles of Sound, the new educational work of Musica Aperta uses a power point presentation to introduce the written language of music in a simple and schematic way. Why writing music? How did it developed? The goal is to try to demystify the difficulty of music and broaden the access to it. Comparisons with other languages are explained and all gets mixed with different pieces of music from different styles. Music will include: Bach, Haydn. Saint Saens, Schoenberg and Glass.