Arts Education

Creativity is a critical component in helping young people learn and think and yet arts education is often squeezed by tight budgets. This series spotlights programs that are filling that gap. How are they working? How are they sustainable? How are they adapting to a diverse population? What can we learn from them and how can they be replicated? This series is supported in part by a generous grant from the Fred W. Fields Fund of the Oregon Community Foundation.

Grace Art Camps: A legacy of creating multicultural awareness through art

The longtime NE Portland art education center explores art as a language for learning about others and ourselves

The vision gets clearer when we talk about it together: Discussing music and education with Lisa Neher

June 16, 2025Matthew Neil Andrews

The singer, composer, and educator talks about her recent Oregon Music Teachers Association Composer of the Year Award, her life as a teacher, and her latest compositions.

Melding media: Professor William Campbell guides Linfield University students in writing musical scores for animated short films

June 4, 2025David Bates

Seminar students combine synthesized and acoustic music to accompany stories ranging from a rite of spring to a rocket-piloting dog.

Mariachi Tradición: Cultural education through music

May 30, 2025Brett Campbell

Forest Grove High School music program’s 10th anniversary concert Saturday celebrates mariachi’s growing presence in Oregon schools.

Oregon Writing Festival: Nurturing the voices of young writers for 40 years

May 9, 2025David Bates

The pandemic put the daylong workshop into rebuilding mode, but students at this year’s event at Woodburn High School emerged jazzed by the power of story.

Believe the HYPE: Bag&Baggage’s new youth performance group exemplifies a company that looks to theater’s future

May 9, 2025Brett Campbell

The Hillsboro Youth Performance Ensemble offers youth hands-on experience in theater craft and management through a paid workforce development program.

Oregon Department of Education launches new, virtual arts education program

May 6, 2025Amanda Waldroupe

There are high hopes that the Arts, Care & Connection program will expose elementary school students to art. But will it be successful?

MECCA used art supply store in Eugene encourages creativity through recycling

March 30, 2025Ester Barkai

The nonprofit Materials Exchange Center for Community Arts, which offers workshops and provides free supplies to teachers, is a cross between a garage sale and an arts-and-crafts thrift shop.

You belong somewhere you feel free: Music in Our Schools month promotes music education and personal development

March 13, 2025Daryl Browne

The 40th anniversary of the National Association for Music Education’s annual celebration finds Oregon choirs, orchestras, arts organizations and schools embracing this year’s MIOS theme, “United Through Music.”

Ashland youths experience theater as a creative act

February 10, 2025Barbara Cervone

In the heart of Oregon Shakespeare country, Empowered Arts Ensemble participants study before the performance how to connect on stage — and collaborate on their own play.

Art Center East in La Grande: Bringing art opportunities and access to Eastern Oregon

February 7, 2025Marc Mohan

The nonprofit center serves a 10-county swath of the state with exhibitions, classes, and annual events, often engaging with the past in ways that speak to the present.

The Actors Conservatory: Hale and hearty and going on 40

December 7, 2024Bob Hicks

The Portland professional training school, which began life in 1985 in a former dental office, now draws students from across the nation seeking careers in the theater world.

The Buetti effect – Nicole Buetti creates children’s videos that are as entertaining as they are educational

December 6, 2024James Bash

The Portland composer, bassoonist, puppeteer, and voiceover artist’s award-winning ‘Meet the Planets’ series is an ingenious blend of music and science.

Portland’s Bridgetown Conservatory of Musical Theatre expands acting, dance, and vocal classes to second location in Salem

December 2, 2024David Bates

The company’s first show to be staged in both cities, “G.I. Holiday Jukebox,” opens Dec. 5.

Ever popular ballet classes provide young students with an introduction to a timeless art form that continues to adapt and grow today

November 25, 2024Jean Zondervan

Teachers at Portland’s five ballet academies bring their distinctive styles and approaches to both technical training and artistic expression, resulting in an array of offerings for budding dancers.

Kids Make Theatre: In Astoria, teaching the performing arts, igniting a passion

November 17, 2024Lori Tobias

Since April 2023, the Liberty Theatre’s low-cost program has brought theater, dance – and self-confidence – to North Coast kids.

No one is done with their education: Alan Jones Academy of Music

October 30, 2024Lynn Darroch

The niche jazz training program with a charismatic leader and a big impact.

Caitlin Lynch doesn’t give up, she gives back – with Project Chamber Music Willamette Valley

October 24, 2024James Bash

The violist and Portland Youth Philharmonic alum returns to Oregon to work with high school and college students.

Jordan Schnitzer turns his attention to K-12 arts education

October 19, 2024Amanda Waldroupe

The developer, philanthropist, and art collector, already an investor in the arts at Northwest public universities, discusses the need to support arts education in Oregon’s primary and secondary public schools.

The Beating Heart of a School: Metropolitan Learning Center’s Art Room

October 11, 2024Cibyl E. Kavan

A look behind the scenes at how visual arts are taught at Portland’s alternative public school for K–12 students.

Portland Opera To Go’s ‘Shizue’ brings a stirring Oregon story to stages and schools around Oregon

October 8, 2024Brett Campbell

Dmae Lo Roberts and Kenji Oh’s new youth chamber opera is the latest in Portland Opera’s series devoted to historical leaders from diverse Oregon communities.

OrpheusPDX’s Pathways Program gives young professionals an onramp into opera

September 4, 2024James Bash

Young stagescraft specialists get intensive on-the-job training through the mentorship program, which helps fill a need for a skilled workforce and guarantee a future for performing arts.

TBA:24 and Linda K. Johnson on the importance of embodied experience and map-making

September 2, 2024Amy Leona Havin

PICA’s TBA:24 festival, spreading across the city Sept. 5-22, boasts a busy lineup including Linda K. Johnson’s "PASTfuture," presented in part by her ongoing "Mycelium Dreams" project.

An Oasis of Peace: Finding pandemic solace in learning a new instrument

August 28, 2024April Choi

A Portland writer turns to the harp to ease her fears and endure "the gloom of a life put on pause."

Young Musicians & Artists concludes another successful year with gusto

August 7, 2024James Bash

The two-week residential summer camps offer a unique opportunity for young creatives to advance their artistic interests while connecting with other talented youth.

It’s very full circle: Looking back on the career of retired Pacific University choral director Scott Tuomi

August 5, 2024Amanda Waldroupe

Tuomi’s impact as a singer, conductor, educator, and advocate has been felt by generations of students from all over the world.

Sitka Center for Art and Ecology will expand youth art program this fall to serve nine Oregon Coast school districts

July 23, 2024Lori Tobias

Sitka's success has inspired a new dance program in the Knappa School District to be taught by Astoria Arts and Movement Center instructors.

Chamber Music Northwest’s Young Artist Institute offers a personal, but intense, experience for young musicians 

July 13, 2024James Bash

The intensive education program for talented string players from around the world includes performances throughout the community, including free showcases, pop-ups around town, and a new mobile concert stage.

Reaching for the stars at the St. Clare Art Fair

June 27, 2024Gabriel Lucich

As tight school budgets threaten to slash arts classes across Oregon, Rose Lifschutz and her students at the Portland school reveal the creative rewards of a healthy arts program.

That spark of inspiration: Social Justice & the Arts at Portland State University

June 25, 2024Lynn Darroch

A new degree program at PSU by Darrell Grant and Suzanne Savaria will be the only one of its kind in the country.