Link Up

About Link Up

Link Up, a program of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, pairs orchestras with students in grades 3–5 at schools in their local communities to explore orchestral repertoire through a hands-on music curriculum. Students participating in Link Up attend a culminating concert, in which they sing and play recorders or string instruments with the orchestra from their seats. With the MSO, over 14,000 third through fifth grade students have participated in Link Up since 2015. Since 2017, all third-grade classes of Modesto City Schools have participated in the program. Over forty other local schools have participated in Link Up, from three counties (Stanislaus, San Joaquin, and Merced). MSYO students are also selected to perform side-by-side with the MSO for the performance adding an extra tier to the educational benefits of Link Up.

Link Up & The Common Core State Standards Initiative

Through hands-on activities and a culminating interactive performance with a professional orchestra, Link Up helps to address Common Core Capacities for College and Career Readiness, empowering students with learning activities through which they:

• Demonstrate independence

• Build strong content knowledge

• Respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline

• Comprehend and critique

• Value evidence

• Use technology and digital media strategically and capably

• Come to understand other perspectives and cultures

While the Link Up curriculum focuses primarily on music performance skills, content knowledge, and creativity, students also build core capacities in English and math. Through composition, active listening, describing and analyzing standard repertoire, and a focus on the historical context of orchestral music, Link Up provides students with the opportunity to put these core capacities to use in a new domain. Specific activities throughout the curriculum address these English and math capacities directly, encouraging reading, writing, and quantitative thinking. Learn more about how Link Up addresses Common Core Standards >