The Academy was thrilled to again host Lynchburg City Strings on February 12 in our Joy & Lynch Christian Warehouse Theatre. Lynchburg City Strings is an important educational 
program, and we were delighted again for the opportunity to help empower local youth in Lynchburg through the arts as part of our Community Outreach Initiative.
Lynchburg City Strings is a program that educates youth through the arts, and studies have shown that youth involvement in the arts can have a lasting, positive impact on a child in the classroom. In the study, “Relations among musical skills, phonological processing, and early reading ability in preschool children” from the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, it was shown that music skills correlated with reading development.
Children of all ages and experience levels performed. Beginners played the few songs they knew before leaving the stage while the more advanced students continued until their set was complete. During the event, Lynchburg City Schools’ children were guided by their string instructors as they performed a number of sets including variations of “Twinkle, Twinkle.” The performances were split into three shows, a one hour concert for each of the three schools that participated.
By Ei Thant Sin
Photographs by Isabella Farias
For more information on the Academy’s Community Outreach Initiative feel free to contact Evan Smith at 434-528-3256×114 or at esmith@academycenter.org.
Thank you to Baird Financial, Walmart Foundation, and the Genworth Foundation for helping to make community outreach possible. Learn more about the Academy’s Community Outreach Programs: academycenter.org/community-outreach
