For Teachers

Symbiotic Collusion believes that public school music education plays an important part in
producing a generation aware of their musical culture. With that, Symbiotic strives to develop
products that may be useful to the unique circumstances of music and string teachers.

Orchestra Works
Symbiotic Collusion is incredibly excited to be working with composer and educator
Richard Neukom. Richard started the string program in Devils Lake, ND in 1977. For the past
35 years Richard has been composing works for his orchestras that specifically address the
standard issues.

Like every teacher, Richard has dealt with too many violins or too few cellos and works
that offer unbalanced parts for the orchestra. As such, he would write works that split into four
violin parts, call for the piano, or provide equally engaging parts throughout the group.

Each of Richard’s works tie in a specific technique, rhythmic feature, or non-musical
element that allows the score to be a functional lesson plan itself. What makes this collection of
orchestra works unique is that it has been crafted over the span of 30-some years not for the
sake of creating a method, but to deal with the rigors of keeping an orchestra program healthy.

Richard’s available works
(link to a page dedicated to his works
info about how to get them)

Other Offerings

Classroom Lectures

  • presentations about musical subjects for music students
  • set lectures such as Chamber Music Basics, Story-telling Through Music,
    and Pulse: a look at rhythm, or
  • we can custom design a lecture for your particular needs
  • these presentations serve to illuminate and analyze aspects of critical thinking
    within a students own playing

Whole-school Presentations

  • presentations surrounding a single subject through music, not necessarily
    about music
  • set lectures including Word-less Story-telling and Hamlet Revisited
  • for the students, these presentations serve to suggest an alternate perspective on an otherwise familiar topic
  • for the admin, these presentations serve to demonstrate the various facets of
    critical and conceptual thinking inherent in musical study

Paired-subject Lectures

  • lectures about standard school subjects—science, math, and language—presented
    through music
  • set lectures such as Mitosis and Shakespeare’s Denial
  • these lectures serve to demonstrate the available synergy between core subjects
    and the music classroom

Recruitment

  • presentations that teach about the variety offered by a string instrument
  • each recruitment presentation is geared toward audience participation

    • (ex. Recruiting Pres. 1 has a student ‘learn violin’ in front of their peers)

  • these presentations serve to create a general excitement about strings

    • Please contact us for more information or questions

    FAQ’s

    Who presents the Symbiotic lectures?

    Freya Sting Quartet along with Sean Neukom provide the lectures and presentations
    directly from Symbiotic.

    Select lectures and presentations are available for purchase at our store to be used by
    other groups or teachers as they would like.

    Who pays for Symbiotic to make the presentations?

    There are three ways presentations are paid for:

    • Symbiotic Collusion pays the presenters. The presentation is free for the school.
    • Freya and Sean donate their time. The presentation is free for the school.
    • The presenters are paid by educational grants sought by Symbiotic Collusion.
      The presentation is free for the school.

    Being a for-profit venture, how does Symbiotic Collusion deal with solicitation issues?

    Simply put, Symbiotic is not looking for any business in return, in any respect.
    Symbiotic is a for-profit enterprise that adopts many non-profit ideals. For more information
    visit our About page.