Blues is the Backbone: Spring Update

We’re halfway through our Spring Semester and want to take a moment to celebrate our Blues is the Backbone students. By the end of the 2025-2026 school year Blues is the Backbone will be presented to roughly 775 students in 36 classrooms in 16 schools throughout the Cleveland Metropolitan School District.

Blues is the Backbone brings together music, literacy, and social-emotional learning to help young students find their voice—both in and out of the classroom.

Designed for grades K–2, this nine-session program uses the tradition of the blues to teach rhythm, storytelling, and emotional expression. Along the way, students build essential life skills like self-awareness, empathy, and collaboration.

In each classroom, students:

• Explore rhythm and blues song structure

• Express emotions through music and storytelling

• Practice positive classroom behaviors through call-and-response

• Learn about blues musicians and connect to their stories

• Collaborate to write and perform an original class song

A highlight of the program is singing along to songs the children write with the help of our talented Teaching Artists. For example, this song below came loosely after a class discussion on Langston Hughes’ poetry and his connection to the blues. Listen to “End of the School Day Blues,” an original song created by a Blues is the Backbone classroom in collaboration with teaching artist Will Horner with Mr. Satorius’ classroom:

Featured Teaching Artist, Will Horner is a musician and educator whose career spans jazz, orchestral, and contemporary performance. He has performed internationally and with a range of professional ensembles, while also teaching students from elementary classrooms to the university level. He’s performed as a soloist for the Escuela Ernesto Ramos Antonini School in Yauco, Puerto Rico, as a pit musician at Playhouse Square, and backing up notable artists such as Anita Wilson, Khirye Tyler, and Gene Moore. He’s held positions with the Ohio Light Opera, Opera Project Columbus, and Abstract Horns. He’s subbed with regional orchestras including: the Columbus Symphony, Cleveland Jazz Orchestra, and the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra. Will holds degrees from Ohio University, and Louisiana State University. As a passionate educator Will has taught students of all ages and is also currently the jazz trombone teacher at Cleveland State University. His work as a ROOTS teaching artist brings both musical excellence and real-world experience directly into the classroom.

Supporting Students Through Change:

As schools across the district faced consolidation, the 2026 Spring program was strategically brought into merging communities. In 2026 with the announcement of CMSD consolidations, Building Better Futures, Roots and CMSD developed a strategy to present Blues is the Backbone to schools facing mergers, with the goal of providing a common experience for the incoming students existing students in the schools that would remain open. This shared experience is intended to help incoming students integrate into their new school. 

Students leave the program with more than a song—they gain tools to understand themselves, work with others, and build confidence.

This program would not be possible without generous donations and significant foundation support. With continued support, Blues is the Backbone can expand its reach and deepen its impact—ensuring more students experience the power of music to connect, express, and grow. Blues is the Backbone continues to provide CMSD students with meaningful music education, skills to develop social and self-awareness, and tools to work together collaboratively.