Through the Arts Education Program, we support opportunities for students to study creative writing, dance, music, theatre, and visual arts with talented arts educators. These educators include classroom teachers, arts instructors, and teaching artists from all over Chicago. The best arts educators approach teaching with the same joy and discipline that they use in creating art and see their students as collaborators in the artistic process. This year we had a special opportunity to bring a group of Chicago public school students together with a uniquely creative group of arts educators from our own Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the internationally acclaimed Silk Road Project.

Is it possible for elementary school children to tell a centuries-old tale of exploration and enlightenment, set in a completely alien land, using primarily drums, bongos, sticks, tambourines and...bubble wrap?

Last spring, 500 fourth graders from five Chicago Public Schools did just that when they had a once-ina- lifetime opportunity to work with two world-renowned institutions�\the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Silk Road Project. Founded by famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the Silk Road Project fosters connections among cultures and promotes innovation and education through the arts. As part of an in-school music residency program made possible by a grant from the Fry Foundation, the students worked with teaching artists from the CSO and the Silk Road Project, including Yo-Yo Ma, to learn a variety of intricate rhythms on percussion instruments: everything from bongos to bubble wrap. And on June 5, 2007, the students joined Yo-Yo Ma, the Silk Road Project, and members of the CSO and the Civic Orchestra of Chicago on the stage of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park in a musical and dramatic performance of "The Stone Horse," a Chinese fable about a young man's heroic journey.

"Looking back, it's hard to say who had the more memorable experience�\ our students or our teachers," says Sandra James, principal at Mark Twain Elementary School, which had 120 students on stage that day. "But I will never forget the looks of amazement on the faces of our parents in the audience; many of them had no idea how big and intricate this performance was going to be."

In Chicago and across the country, school systems struggle to find the time and money to offer students engaging and rigorous arts education. Yet we have evidence that students involved in the arts do better in school. And the arts can help students develop creative and critical ways of thinking, seeing, and working that are valuable both in and outside of school. In-school arts residencies, provided by arts and cultural organizations, continue to be important ways of providing students with arts experiences otherwise missing from their educational experience.

"On one level, these students had the unique experience of playing a significant role in a very polished performance at a marquee venue," says Charles Grode, vice president of education, community relations and diversity at the CSO. "But the project's value as a learning experience transcends its impact as a performance. To see where these students went from the first rehearsal to the performance was to see them develop an astounding level of discipline and sophistication in a very short period of time."

The preparation for the performance had an enormous impact on the Chicago public school students and teachers involved. But it was also an exciting collaboration and artistic opportunity for the 10 CSO-affiliated teaching artists who contributed more than 200 hours as liaisons between Silk Road ensemble members and the students. "The work with the Silk Road percussionists gave the Chicago-based teaching artists a great sense of community," Grode says. "The specific rhythms the Silk Road members contributed were essential, but the project would not have been possible without the collaboration and expertise contributed by the Chicago artists."

That sense of collaboration extends beyond the artists to the Chicago institutions that were involved with the Silk Road Project, Grode adds. "Through this initiative we've forged new relationships with artists, educators, and others, and we've become much more collaborative with the other cultural institutions that were involved in the effort. Now that we've had this experience and seen how it has touched teachers and students, we are exploring ways in which it can serve as a template for future efforts."