UNCSA Students Use Art as a Bridge to Port-au-Prince

Jonathan Milner teaches AP US Government, Civics and Economics to high school students at the University of NC School of the Arts.

Jonathan has been named the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Teacher of the Year, and over the past two decades he's brought a remarkable level of energy and commitment to the classroom. But it's the work that  goes on outside of the classroom that may be the most remarkable. In 2005 Jonathan founded Global Arts Project, an educational exchange program to expand his student's horizons and bring them together with other students in the US, Eastern Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

The next Global Arts Project will find Jonathan and 20 of his students in Port-au-Prince, Haiti this summer where they will work with and learn from the students at the Zanmi Beni orphanage building instruments, performing music together, and sharing songs. The Haiti Project concert is a free event with student music, dance, drama, visual art and a bucket brigade performance. It'll be tonight at 7:30 pm in Crawford Hall on the UNCSA campus. Donations at the performance event will be accepted for the Haiti Project to help get the students to Port-au-Prince. Jonathan spoke with David Ford about the project, and he was joined in the studio by Senior UNCSA violist Sean Mulligan and rising Junior French hornist Meredith Bain. They'll both be performing at tonight's fundraising concert and we'll sample from those performances throughout this story.