Meet Steve Schroth: Boston Children's Museum Residency PART II

Part II of our BCM Residency blog post series features the fabulous Steve Schroth, the Culture and Arts Educator at Boston Children’s Museum. As a collaborator with Continuo, Steve oversees and offers his expertise on all of our BCM programs. In this interview, join us in exploring Steve’s work, passions, and goals as a member of Boston’s musical community!

What are your responsibilities as the Culture and Arts Educator at BCM?

Steve: I develop and implement all programming at the museum that pertains to music, theater, dance, and the humanities.

What is your background with music?

S: I grew up in a family where there was a lot of music. My mom played piano and was always taking me to community concerts and things like that. I began taking cello lessons when I was 5 years old and continued private lessons through college. So, 18 years of cello lessons total! I also played in several orchestras and ensembles through school. I also played upright bass for about five years in middle school and high school so that I could play more jazz.

What are the greatest challenges/rewards of your job?

S: The biggest challenge is saying “no.” There are so many rich opportunities for programs and partnerships, it can be very difficult to say no to an idea. I personally find it difficult to say no to other people and it is also hard for me to tell myself no and be disciplined in how we focus our energy. Once I have an idea I want to pursue it to the end. However, this can lead to stretching myself thin, biting off more than I can chew. What is best for our visitors is to be strategic and focused in how we use our time and resources. I am currently working on being much more purposeful in the projects I pursue and working to deepen our relationships both with our program partners and with our visitors. The idea is to go deep rather than broad.

The greatest reward is the relationships that come out of these programs. I often find that the best learning comes out of relationships and so being able to partner with 60 arts organizations a year to produce hundreds of programs that are seen by between 60,000 and 80,000 visitors is an amazing opportunity for me to learn from all those people I get to interact with. I am fortunate to work with groups like Continuo whom I can learn from and who help me reflect on my own work.

~20 years ago, how did you expect your career to develop? Would you have expected to be doing what you’re doing now?

S: Well, 20 years ago I was in elementary school and I think I wanted to be a zookeeper. In some ways, I still want to be a zookeeper. It could still happen (#lifegoals). I started thinking about jobs in high school. I was fortunate to have a wonderful orchestra teacher who conducted a string ensemble I was in from the age of 6 until I was 19. And so there was a time in high school when I thought I wanted to be a music teacher. I then transitioned into history education. I got my bachelors in history and then moved to California to get a PhD in environmental history when I realized that being a professor would not allow me to do the type of teaching I wanted to. I was really more interested in public history, that is, history education that occurs outside of academia. That is how I got into working in museums. Now I work at the intersection of those two things – music education and museum education so it is a nice meeting of interests from different points in my life.

What are your goals when programming a community performance?

S: Goals differ from one program to the next. But stated broadly, there are several overarching goals to our performing arts education programming. One key goal is to encourage our visitors to be more thoughtful producers and recipients of each others’ stories. We empower visitors to express themselves creatively and to value and take joy in the creative expressions of others. By encouraging children to take pleasure in and emotionally connect to the stories of others, we seek to provide a foundation that will build empathy and perspective-taking.

Another key goal is to connect visitors to the rich performing arts resources in Boston. Boston is a wonderful community for music and the arts and we want to connect visitors to those resources so they can extend their learning after they visit the Museum.

Most memorable moment from any Continuo/BCM collaboration?

S: Mai wearing a pair of yellow pants on her head as a blond wig was pretty memorable.

What's next at BCM?

S: There are always new fun things to do at the Museum! The next big program I am working on is Lunar New Year. It is a weekend long program where we and community partners explore with visitors how communities in Boston celebrate the Lunar New Year through dance, games, and art with a focus on Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese traditions. It consists of art activities, storytimes, and performances with local arts organizations from across Boston and is a really fun, busy weekend at the museum.

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Thank you so much to Steve for sharing his experiences and ideas with all of us! To learn more about Steve’s work and programming at the Boston Children’s Museum, click here.

Through this program, Continuo musicians will participate in a semester-long residency (4 on-site dates) at Boston Children’s Museum, creating learning and performance opportunities emphasizing collaboration and a variety of audiences. To learn more, see Community Performance Series.