York Community High School in Elmhurst will be honored for the excellence of its music program Thursday when school officials receive a Grammy Foundation Signature Schools Gold Award.
The award, which comes with a $5,500 grant, recognizes York's music program as one of the top three in the country.
"The top three are chosen based on overall performance quality and the quality of the overall music education program," said Bill Riddle, York's Performance and Visual Arts Division chairman.
Just as the Recording Academy's Grammy awards recognize excellence in recording arts and sciences, the foundation awards honor top high school music education programs.
"The Grammy Foundation's Grammy Signature Schools program produces real impact for high schools each year," Kristen Madsen, senior vice president of the foundation, said in an email. "It's just one of the ways in which our Grammy in the Schools programs offer high school students and schools significant resources through music."
York participated in the program for the first time last year and was honored then as one of 125 semifinalists.
This year York was chosen as one of three gold finalists, along with Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas, and Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, which went on to win the top national award.
Riddle said the competition begins with the submittal of what he called "a lot of information" about the school's program and curriculum. Of York's 2,600 students, about 600 are involved in the music program, Riddle said.
After York was chosen as a semifinalist, Riddle said the school submitted more information, including repertoires and short audio clips of performances by music groups in the school's program.
Those clips are coded so that judges don't have names of the schools whose materials they review. Top music professionals and educators do the judging.
York's award will be presented Thursday evening in the school's Baker Auditorium by Matt Hennessey, president of the Chicago chapter of the Recording Academy.
The presentation will be made just after the 7:30 p.m. start of a concert by the York Symphony Orchestra, led by Ray Ostwald. The concert honors York's 2013 graduating class.
More information on the Grammy Foundation and its Grammy in the Schools programs is available at http://www.grammyintheschools.com.
