Rosse Hall has been abuzz for the past couple of days because of a mysterious musical event. Well, the secret’s out: The Kenyon Music Entrepreneurs are preparing for Knox Rocks, a one-day musical event created to benefit students at Knox County Middle School on May 6th.
Students in MUSC 325: State of the Art, a class focused on entrepreneurship in the arts, will host the event. At the beginning of the semester, students had the opportunity to pitch ideas for nonprofit, arts-based projects and then voted on their favorite ideas. The ideas were then combined to create one event, Knox Rocks. Once the idea was selected, the students started working on making the project a reality, and the Kenyon Music Entrepreneurs was formed.
Knox Rocks will begin with a workshop for all the participating middle schoolers. The visiting students will be separated into six music groups – Film/Video Game Ensemble, Classical Ensemble, Jazz/R&B Ensemble, Pop Ensemble, Country Ensemble and Rock/Punk Ensemble – according to their interests. The Kenyon Music Entrepreneurs will work to help the middle schoolers successfully combine their talents for six separate pieces. After a break, the participants will have a final rehearsal before performing in Rosse at the end of the day. The performances will take place from 3-4 p.m. and are free and open to the public.
The event will bring together the Kenyon student body and the larger Knox County/Mount Vernon community. Theodore Schwamm ’24, the executive director of Knox Rocks, wrote in an email to the Collegian, “At Kenyon, it can be easy to feel distanced from the greater Knox County [area], as we spend most of our time in Gambier. However, I have a job in Mount Vernon this year, and through that I have found that a lot of people in Mount Vernon and Knox County see Kenyon as part of their community even if that isn’t always how we see it. It will be nice to make this interaction more reciprocal!”
Schwamm hopes that as many Kenyon students as possible come to the event so that the middle schoolers have a big audience to appreciate all the work they’ve done. More information can be found on the Knox Rocks website.