November 21, 2016

EDC Helps NY Philharmonic Launch New Website

Interactive lessons deepen kids’ skills in listening to great musical works

With help from EDC’s Center for Children and Technology, the New York Philharmonic has launched Young People’s Concerts Play!, a new website with on-demand streaming of concerts enhanced by interactive lessons for classrooms.

Over a period of two years, EDC helped to translate the Philharmonic’s in-school workshops into interactive online lessons. Young People’s Concerts Play! features video-based singing and listening activities and a music composition game called Variation Playground, all aimed at deepening students’ skills in listening and responding to great works of music. EDC provided instructional design, classroom research, and design consulting throughout the development process.

“When the Philharmonic asked for our help in figuring out how new technologies could expand the reach of the Young People’s Concerts, we zeroed right in on their amazing teaching artists,” said EDC’s Bill Tally. “The interactive design puts them front and center.”

Young People’s Concerts Play! has already begun to offer on-demand listening to Philharmonic concerts, beginning with Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra and Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“We are grateful for EDC’s help and expertise to create engaging, interactive activities for our new site,” said Theodore Wiprud, Vice President, Education at the New York Philharmonic. “The site enables non-music teachers and students to engage playfully with great works of music even without a talented musician in the classroom.”