Recently, in April, we hosted our lovely Verdun Elementary students at the McGill campus for our very first “McGill Day” event. Students followed our McGill volunteer teachers and staff members along a tour of the campus, getting to check out the Schulich School of Music interior as well as several other McGill landmarks. We played improv games, saw exhibits at the Redpath Museum, ate pizza in the SSMU building, and enjoyed some delicious ice cream from Frostbite (our on campus ice cream shop) to top off the day.
The children absolutely loved trying out the pianos in the Schulich practice rooms. They had a lot of fun learning how a piano makes sound, as well as feeling the difference in action on the keyboard. It was a great way for them to see what a university-level music education looked like, and for them to get to know where their teachers were coming from.
We are hoping that this event can become a staple in our programming for future semesters, and we will take the lessons we learned from the pilot event and apply them moving forward. A huge thank-you to our event volunteers, as well as the personnel at McGill for making sure the students had a great experience.