Tandy Beal & Company

ArtSmart — Keith Terry and Crosspulse

Tandy Beal & Company presents Keith Terry’s Crosspulse Percussion Ensemble as our First Saturday Family Concert Series featured Artist on March 7 at the Veterans Memorial Building at 11 AM in downtown Santa Cruz.

Crosspulse Percussion Ensemble is part international drill team, part polycultural rhythm section! This is music you can see and dance you can hear! People Magazine chose their new CD as one of the Top 5 Children’s albums. Crosspulse has been heard on NPR and seen on CBS and ABC and in concerts around the world.

This month’s First Saturday Concert Series performance will be the culmination of 3 days of concerts in Watsonville, Salinas and King City that will reach 4,000 young people and school children! All of these concerts are part of Tandy Beal and Company’s ArtSmart education program, running all spring and next fall.

This month’s ArtSmart Program also features in-school classes and concerts with Jeff Raz from Cirque du Soleil, and Santa Cruz stars, Paula Bliss (Education Director for Tandy Beal and Company) and Saki (ArtSmart Director). In February, Tandy Beal and Company presented Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir, celebrating Black History Month, and held professional development workshops for teachers through the ArtSmart Program.

As Michael Watkins, Santa Cruz County Office of Education Superintendent says, “Through arts in education, students develop the creative thinking and problem solving skills that are crucial to successful life and work in the 21st century.”

Participating schools for Tandy Beal & Company’s 2015 ArtSmart Program include: Ann Soldo Elementary, Mintie White Elementary, Linscott Charter School, Watsonville Charter School for the Arts, Live Oak Elementary, Amesti Elementary, Watsonville High School, Delta High School, Cesar Chavez Middle School, Mt. Madonna School, Radcliff Elementary and Ohlone Elementary.

Tandy Beal & Company’s ArtSmart Program is designed to ignite the imagination through concerts and classes that help students, teachers and parents experience a variety of world arts and actively integrate this knowledge with their school curriculum. ArtSmart brings quality art – both performance and education—to students who would otherwise not be able to experience these. The goals are to broaden the children’s perspective and their dreams for themselves, invite them to think creatively, be successful in school even when English is not their first language, expand their knowledge, and bring joy to their lives. Classes for children and professional development workshops for teachers are held throughout the spring.

We thank our sponsors for making this dream come true: Arts Council Santa Cruz, California Arts Council, Community Foundation Santa Cruz County, Community Foundation for Monterey County, Downtown Association of Santa Cruz, the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the Bill Graham Memorial Foundation, the Fleishhacker Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Good Times, Santa Cruz Sentinel, KUSP, Jasmine Burke and Scott Roseman, Maggie Collins, Carolyn Hyatt, and our ArtSmart and First Saturday Leadership Circles.