Features

The Berkeley public schools will present their annual Performing Arts Showcase Sunday, March 21. 

The music celebration will take place at the Berkeley High Community Theatre, 1930 Allston Way, from 1 to 3:30 p.m.  

The event is free and open to the public. 

Five hundred students from 15 Berkeley schools will perform.  

Choirs, orchestras, concert and jazz bands will play music and sing songs that they have learned over the past year. A special guest will be Alameda County Supervisor Keith Carson. 

Schools in Berkeley make musical education available to all students in all grades, ranging from choral and instrumental classes in elementary school to orchestra, band, AP music theory, and jazz in high school. 

California Schools have cut music programs in response to financial crisis. 

In Berkeley, however, the school district has continued to fund music education. Support for K-12 music education in Berkeley is provided by a Berkeley Schools Excellence Project (BSEP) parcel tax. 

The Berkeley Unified School District is part of the 10-year anniversary of Art IS Education celebrations, an annual showcase of youth arts learning in Alameda County celebrated every year during March, national arts education month.  

 The Alameda County Arts Commission in partnership with the Alameda County Office of Education has coordinated featured events within each of the five districts of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors in honor of the 10-year anniversary of Art IS Education. 

Julie Holcomb, co-chair of the BSEP Planning and Oversight Committee, wrote in a letter to the Planet that “music instruction is disappearing from schools statewide and nationwide, but it remains a powerful presence in our Berkeley public schools … Our music program will continue no matter how steep the cuts in state funding of schools. We can be proud to be part of a community that values its children, the arts, and education, and is willing to vote resources to support them.” 

What: Annual Performing Arts Showcase. 

Where: Berkeley High Community Theatre, 1930 Allston Way, Berkeley.  

For details please call 510-644-8772. 

Raymond Barglow is the founder of Berkeley Tutors Network