Community Arts + Collaboration
At its core, Symphony for a Broken Orchestra is a civic artwork — bringing together public schools, cultural institutions, artists, philanthropists, and families to collectively address systemic inequities in music education funding.
Developed through Temple Contemporary at Tyler School of Art and Architecture, the project began with a simple but significant question: What happens when the instruments in public schools no longer function?
Rather than treating this as an isolated problem, the initiative reframed it as a shared cultural responsibility.
Partner Organizations
The project required sustained collaboration across sectors, including:
The School District of Philadelphia
Music educators and public school administrators
Local arts leaders and cultural institutions
Philanthropic partners and individual donors
Families and student musicians
Each partner played a distinct role, from cataloguing instrument conditions to coordinating repairs, fundraising, and performance logistics.
Community Engagement Process
The collaboration unfolded in phases:
Research & Inventory – Hundreds of school instruments were evaluated and documented.
Public Awareness – The scale of need was shared transparently with the broader community.
Artistic Commission – Composer David Lang created a work specifically for the available instruments.
Collective Performance – Students performed the piece using the very instruments that inspired it.
Repair & Restoration – Funds raised through the project supported instrument repair and long-term access.
The performance was not the endpoint; it was a catalyst.
Public Performance as Civic Event
Presented as a large-scale public concert, the performance functioned as both artwork and advocacy. It made visible (and audible) the material realities facing school music programs.
Audiences did not simply witness a symphony; they experienced the sound of structural inequity transformed through collective action.