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Click here to visit the main BASH THE TRASH website.

BASH THE TRASH PRESENTS PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

WORKSHOPS 

FOR

EDUCATORS

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PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

&

PERFORMANCE PACKAGES

KEYNOTES, 
MASTER CLASSES

&

CONSULTING

BIO

&

RESUME

Bash the Trash has been working with orchestras and orchestral institutions since its inception in the late 1980’s.  We’ve worked with Carnegie Hall, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Brooklyn Philharmonic, Canton Symphony Orchestra, Long Island Philharmonic, and Westchester Philharmonic among others.   

FOR ORCHESTRAS AND ENSEMBLES

John Bertles and Bash the Trash’s services to orchestras include: 

  • A full-blown environmental program involving professional development for teachers, student instrument building, and audience-member participation in specially composed orchestral pieces for school-time or family concerts  

  • Instrument-building instructions in hand-bills for young peoples concerts 

  • Pre-concert building activities 

  • Long-term Teaching Artist Residencies 

  • Professional Development for teachers, orchestral musicians and teaching artists 

  • Consulting on educational programs connecting music to literacy, music, science, math and social studies curriculum 

  • Dynamic concert narration and programming consulting for young peoples and family programming 

Contact me to discuss what we can do for your orchestra. Also related is our Instrument Spotlight Offerings.

Our most popular professional development offering for Orchestras:

CREATING AND NOTATING WITH STUDENT-BUILT INSTRUMENTS

A unique professional development mash-up with content especially designed for orchestras, this workshop combines the most relevant music-making and composing portions of two of John Bertles’ PD workshops - Building Musical Instruments from Recycled Materials, and Composing with Children. Educators will learn how to build simple instruments from all four families of the orchestra and then compose for those instruments using invented and graphic notation that also provides a basis for understanding traditional western notation.

Creating and Notating
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