CMC’s Sylvia Sherman recognized by SFUSD with Dreamcatcher Award

On May 4, the SFUSD Visual and Performing Arts Department recognized our Program Director Sylvia Sherman as a community arts partner with a Dreamcatcher Award. The award ceremony was held at the SFUSD Arts Festival Community Celebration at the Asian Art Museum, and featured exuberant live music and dance by SFUSD students.

Donn Harris, SFUSD’s Executive Director for Creativity and the Arts and Chair of the California Arts Council, presented Sylvia with her award, beginning with a quote from John Coltrane, “You can play a shoestring if you’re sincere.”

He went on to make sure the audience knew of CMC’s long history of providing music education to all: “CMC has always been a beacon in our minds, a special place with real roots in the Mission District and the kind of pure mission that we all want to be part of . . . .you know the arts are OK as long as places like CMC are thriving.”

CMC partners with SFUSD to bring mariachi music to SF public schools
In 2015, CMC began work with the SFUSD to provide teaching artists for the district’s mariachi program. Over the past two years, CMC faculty members Miguel Govea, Tregar Otton, and Martha Rodríguez-Salazar have taught at Buena Vista Horace Mann, Cesar Chavez Elementary, Fairmont Elementary and Mission High Schools as part of a San Francisco Unified School District-led initiative to teach mariachi music in their schools.

Mariachi programs are springing up across the U.S. as a way to bring music education to a wider group of students, engage families, honor students’ culture, and better address the needs of Spanish bilingual students. This culturally responsive program meets music education standards and follows a pedagogy just as traditional orchestra and band programs do.

About the Dreamcatcher Award:
Inspired by individually crafted Native American dreamcatchers, highly endowed and talismanic works of art believed to have the power to capture dreams and prevent negativity, the Visual and Performing Arts Department of the San Francisco Uni ed School District proudly presents Dreamcatcher Awards as part of the SFUSD Arts Festival to honor individuals who have inspired our educational community through the excellent work they have done to promote the vision and the promise of the SFUSD Arts Education Master Plan.

Dreamcatcher recipients come from various parts of the community, including arts teachers, school arts coordinators, principals, administrators and community arts partners. The Visual and Performing Arts Department is proud to recognize these arts education leaders with the annual Dreamcatcher Awards, which made their debut in 2007, along with the Master Plan, and have provided our community with a way to recognize and celebrate the excellent work provided by these exemplary and inspiring arts leaders.

More info: www.sfusdartsfestival.org/dreamcatcher.html