The historic nature of New Orleans music needs representation so that visitors as well as locals can understand, appreciate and hopefully can lead to more veneration of our music (that’s why we need a music museum).

Our kids need to be taught that without music, New Orleans would be a very different place to live. Our kids need to know the legacy and history of jazz, and how New Orleans birthed a world-changing art form, America’s only indigenous music, music that’s had a profound impact on everything from rock to classical music to jam bands.

Well, obviously the best way to do that is to once again make sure that children are taught music. That process stopped in many of our public schools decades ago.

Louisiana has the opportunity to step up to insure that our children are educated musically. Music education should be part of the curriculum, statewide.

Many years ago, I was on an advisory board to the (now-defunct) Louisiana Music Commission. One of the board members, Dr. David Swanzy (who was then the head of the School of Music at Loyola University) actually came up with a core music curriculum for grade schools. He presented it at the board meeting; it was applauded. And nothing happened. I wonder where all the work that Dr. Swanzy put into the development of that project went. Does it still exist somewhere?

I look at the Youth Orchestra program in Venezuela, which became a nationwide effort in that country. The Orquestra Sinfónica Simón Bolívar, the national youth orchestra of the country, “El Sistema,” actually produced musicians fine enough to now lead the Los Angeles Symphony (Gustavo Dudamel).

In case you’re not familiar with the story of the Venezuelan orchestra story, José Antonio Abreu a visionary activist, organist and politician, started Venezuela’s El Sistema in 1975, with five children in a parking garage. Almost four decades down the line, a half million children, most of them from communities living below the poverty line, have grown up in the orchestras of El Sistema. El Sistema now has affiliated orchestras around the world, and even one in New Orleans (Make Music NOLA, located in the Ninth Ward).

But this isn’t enough. We need this form of musical education in every school in Louisiana. Moreover, we need regular music history classes taught in every school in the state at both the grade school and high school levels.

As an adjunct to this, we need places to take our kids that educate and entertain them, and encourage them to seek out music as an enriching force, and possibly even a career. This has to come from the schools, but could certainly be reinforced with education facilities—museums—with attached music education. The closest thing we have to that now is the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation’s School of Music.

The Jazz & Heritage Foundation does a fine job of educating kids and the public with their music school and with the programming in their ongoing roster of free festivals.

The most resonant example of this can probably be seen in the Foundation’s “Class Got Brass” competition that’s held every year at the Congo Square Rhythms Festival (this year the Class Got Brass competition will take place on March 20, the Sunday of the festival weekend). New Orleans has spawned brass bands with a special sound, and this is a program that’s designed to develop an appreciation and the talent for brass band music. Class Got Brass Competiton has spurred local schools and band directors to train and encourage their music students to win accolades for their playing as well as monetary support for their school’s music programs via a homegrown music format: our version of El Sistema. Way to go, Jazz & Heritage Foundation.