After five years of staging operas at elementary schools throughout East Central Indiana, Ball State University music faculty and students have learned the keys to success. For starters, children are more likely to appreciate a production if they've been prepped by preperformance books, songs, craft projects, and an information-packed videotape. In addition, lively interaction between singers and onlookers adds to the fun of a show. Finally, a truly grand opera always includes a chase scene. If it isn't in the script, professor-librettist Carla Jo Maltas finds a way to insert it.

"A chase is part of the formula," explains Maltas, a former K-12 music teacher who has created much of the preperformance materials. "The kids love it."

The Opera Outreach program, directed by Craig Priebe, is among several initiatives that groom future patrons and encourage budding artists, as part of Ball State's artful and enterprising music education program. Music faculty and students take to the road to offer opportunities for learning more about music, benefiting area youth and Ball State students equally.

"These kinds of experiences give our music education majors the chance to work with real youngsters," says Kristin Turner, director of the String Project, which places Ball State instrumentalists in teaching situations at Muncie's Cornerstone Center for the Arts. Because few public schools can afford to support string music instruction, the project, which has received multiyear program support from the American String Teachers Association, fills a gap. Preschoolers through teenagers have the option of taking weekly group or private lessons, attending a summer workshop, and performing in a recital.

"We don't expect all the children will become virtuosos, but we hope they'll develop an interest in attending concerts and supporting the arts," explains Turner. "Our vision is to establish a pipeline between the String Project and the East Central Indiana Youth Orchestra that rehearses and performs on campus. The String Project students can become a training group for the orchestra."

Another string program--a long-standing collaboration between the Muncie Symphony Orchestra and the School of Music--brings Ball State's Graduate String Quartet to Delaware County elementary schools. For more than 25 years, two graduate student violinists, a violist, and cellist have made weekly trips to schools to share the music and the magic of string quartets with groups of third through fifth graders. The players also present stories about the music, instruments, and composers--and they always plan for time to answer youngsters' questions.

A similar outreach program places Ball State's student Woodwind Quintet in an elementary school each week for a performance and interaction with the young students. A win-win-win situation, the Muncie Symphony gains by creating a potential future audience that can more readily identify with the music and musicians on stage; Ball State students benefit by learning how to engage an audience; and the elementary students are enriched by what they otherwise may never have come to know.

All the outreach programs share the challenge of correcting misconceptions about classical music. Maltas's 10-minute video demystifies opera as it traces a production from cast auditions to opening night. Children ask questions on camera and receive answers from a narrator, who is a music major and opera participant. "Why do they sing so loud?" wonders one youth, plugging her ears. "There were no microphones in the old days," explains the narrator. "Singers had to learn to project their voices."

The costs of the programs are minimal and often defrayed by donations from community organizations. The Cornerstone Center for the Arts provides violins, violas, cellos, and basses for String Project students who cannot afford to purchase their own. A grant from the Community Foundation of Muncie and Delaware County supported the production of the opera videotape, and a gift from arts patron Mary Jane Sursa augmented the foundation grant to purchase a portable sound system.

"Our program costs less than a thousand dollars," says Christian Zembower, who takes Ball State's 80-member Symphony Band on the road each spring. However, the value to the students at Richmond High School, which was the most recent band destination, cannot be quantified.

Zembower received assistance from the Wayne County Community Foundation to bring his musicians for the day, which included two concerts--one in the afternoon for students from elementary schools that feed into the secondary system and an evening program for the community, in which Richmond band students played alongside Ball State students. There also was a lunch-time opportunity to "rub shoulders" with the high school musicians. The visit had a dual mission: It generated interest in the high school band program and showed that band participation doesn't have to end with graduation.

"When the teens talk with our students over lunch or after the concert, they realize that Ball State students have the option of choosing other majors without forfeiting their interest in music," continues Zembower. If that message comes from an adult, the youths frequently discount it, he says. "But seeing college students who are actually doing it causes them to say, 'Wow, I guess I can do that too.'"

The "wow" factor is an important part of all School of Music outreach projects, and it is an unmistakable one. Great music--sometimes with a twist and always with the needs of young audiences in mind--is ably performed by "cool" graduate and undergraduate students under the watchful wing of committed professionals. How better to inspire tomorrow's musicians and music patrons?