Posted on February 1, 2001 at 3:05 p.m.

BIRMINGHAM, AL — For the first time in Alabama, the Lincoln Center Institute will bring its aesthetic education program to elementary school students through a sponsorship with the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Birmingham City Schools.

A three-day training program begins Monday, February 5, at the Alys Stephens Center with a session for teachers and community artists that ends with a reception and lecture by Amelia Barton, vice president of the Lincoln Center Association of Institutes for Aesthetic Education.

Tuesday, February 6, teaching sessions for students and teachers, with noted soprano Judith Hill, will be held at Avondale Elementary from 8-11:15 a.m. and at Wylam Elementary from 12:15-2:45 p.m. Later that day, the teaching artists will participate in training sessions with Hill at the Alys Stephens Center.

Wednesday, February 7, 218 Wylam and Avondale students, along with 15 teachers and the teaching artists, will attend a private concert by noted jazz pianist Marcus Roberts at 10 a.m. at the Alys Stephens Center.

The aesthetic education program began in July 2000 when four community artists, along with teachers from Birmingham City Schools and UAB faculty, traveled to the Lincoln Center Institute in New York City to attend a five-day aesthetic education workshop. The artists and teachers returned to Birmingham to build an aesthetic education program in Birmingham City Schools. The first two schools selected for the pilot program were Avondale and Wylam elementary schools; officials hope to expand the program to at least four more schools next year.

Aesthetic education is defined as an approach to teaching and learning in the arts. The purpose is to deepen the participants’ understanding of themselves and the world through the arts, using the work of art as the text. This philosophy is based on the premise that the arts are as basic to enlightened citizenship as the study of mathematics, science, social studies or languages — and belong alongside them in the school curriculum, according to a session description from the Lincoln Center Institute.

Marcus Roberts is a native of Jacksonville, Florida. Blind since the age of five, Roberts was first exposed to music in the local church where his mother was a gospel singer. His parents bought a piano when he was 8 years old, and he began nine years of formal training at age 12. After graduating from Florida State University, the young African-American jazz pianist caught the attention of Wynton Marsalis, who had a profound effect on Roberts’ artistic development. In 1994, Roberts signed on with Columbia Records. With more than a dozen albums, Roberts tours extensively throughout the world and is very involved with the Lincoln Center Institute. His latest recording, “Blues for the New Millennium,” is a collection of 14 songs featuring 12 original songs by Roberts.