Title
Recognizing, Honoring, Celebrating, and Thanking Robert Capanna on the Occasion of his Retirement as Executive Director of Settlement Music School.
Body
WHEREAS, Robert Capanna was born in 1952 in Camden, New Jersey, spent his early musical life commuting to Philadelphia for music lessons, and ultimately received his Bachelor and Master of Music degrees in composition from the Philadelphia Music Academy; and
WHEREAS, In 1974, he was the Bruno Maderna Fellow in Composition at the Berkshire Music Center at Tanglewood where he worked with Jacob Druckman and was awarded the Koussevitsky Prize in composition; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Capanna is an active, widely respected, award-winning composer whose works have been performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony, Concerto Soloists, Penn Contemporary Players, Orchestra 2001, Orchestra Society of Philadelphia, among others, as well as in numerous chamber music and broadcast series, and is president of the Presser Foundation Board of Directors as well as a member of the Board of Directors for New Sounds Music; and
WHEREAS, In 1976, Mr. Capanna came to Settlement Music School, a community school of the arts, as director of the School's Kardon-Northeast Branch, and, in 1982, was named executive director, a position he held for twenty-seven years before retiring on December 31, 2009; and
WHEREAS, During his tenure, the Jenkintown, West Philadelphia, and Camden Settlement branches opened, and, between 1982 and 2008, enrollment rose from 2,700 to 15,000 as the school's endowment grew from $1 million to $10 million; and
WHEREAS, Mr. Capanna launched the school's Kaleidoscope Preschool Arts Enrichment Program, a daily arts-based experience for low-income children, greatly expanded a program for advanced students, and started a chamber-music program for adults; and
WHEREAS, Founded in 1908 and attended since then by close to 300,000 students, Settlement, the largest employer of musicians in the region, wi...
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