The Symphony of Northwest Arkansas (SoNA), based in Fayetteville, has made that aspiration a reality through SoNA Mentors, which served nearly 1,200 junior high and high school students in 11 schools during the 2023-24 school year.
SoNA Executive Director Ben Harris said orchestra members give individual attention that is not always available from busy instructors or accessible to students who cannot afford private lessons.
Initiated as a small strings program, Harris said SoNA Mentors blossomed after the orchestra worked with iBossWell (IBW) on a three-year strategic plan completed in June 2022.
Serving as the lead consultant on the plan, IBW Vice President Lynne Brown oversaw a comprehensive analysis that included interviews with key community stakeholders, an audience survey, a full-day strategic planning retreat with SoNA board members and staff, and nine focused planning sessions following the retreat.
Creating musicians and music lovers of the future through school partnerships was one of the strategic priorities included in the final plan. The other three were engaging audiences through a “broad, relevant, and inclusive” repertoire; building the orchestra’s brand and visibility; and fostering growth and stability in the organization.
SoNA has fulfilled one key performance indicator by adding Natalie Fernandez as the education director. As a longtime school music instructor, Fernandez knows that assistance from SoNA Mentors is like giving music teachers “octopus arms to be able to conquer more instructional goals.”
The orchestra’s community outreach also includes SoNA Beyond, where small groups of musicians from the main orchestra perform free concerts in the community. Harris said public libraries are perfect spots to engage young families and captivate children.
“I remember when I had that moment myself when I was about 5 years old and seeing someone play an instrument in front of me and realizing, ‘Oh, that's where all that sound comes from, someone's making that sound.’ So we like to be able to provide that moment for kids in the community.”
To Fernandez, SoNA Beyond is a way to eliminate the perception that orchestra performances are hoity-toity affairs available only to well-heeled audiences filled with men in tuxedos and women in pearls. She said SoNA Beyond also makes the symphony accessible to people who can’t make it to evening main-stage performances.
Fernandez also credited SoNA Beyond performances in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, with putting the orchestra on the radar of Simmons Foods, based in that city about 30 miles west of Fayetteville. The company has made a five-year, $100,000 commitment to expand SoNA Mentors into four schools in and around Siloam Springs.
Funding from Baum Charitable Foundation Trust has also made it possible for the symphony to offer free tickets to attendees under 18 who accompany a paying adult.
The payoff to the symphony’s outreach, Fernandez said, is that “we’re investing in, not just future musicians who may potentially end up being performers on our stage, but they're going to be lifelong lovers of music, and so they're going to be ticket buyers.”
For Harris, the strategic plan has been important for accountability. He said there’s no shortage of good ideas around the office, but when you commit them to paper, assign responsibilities, and calculate costs “then it becomes a real thing.”
Particularly enlightening to him was the feedback Brown gathered in talking to patrons. He said comments were more candid than platitudes usually offered when mingling after a performance.
“Lynne was very, very thorough, talked to a lot of people, got a lot of really good information and a lot of good insights that we hadn't heard before,” Harris said.