Paisley Park and Minneapolis Public Schools partner to make Prince's world accessible to students
by Brian Oake and Simone Cazares
November 29, 2018
Paisley Park is partnering with Minneapolis Public Schools to give students an inside look into Prince's world. Starting with the the Fine Arts Interdisciplinary Resource (FAIR) school, students will be able to tour Prince's home and recording complex for free, giving students access to more arts-education opportunities.
As Tour Operations Manager for Paisley Park, Mitch Maguire is looking forward to working with the district and inspiring the next generation of young artists in Minneapolis.
"Prince was a huge advocate of music education and the way in which it inspires people, and especially young people," Maguire said. "As he would say, 'Pick up an instrument and keep this thing going.' So we're really excited now to be able to work in conjunction with MPS to fulfill that vision."
While the primary focus of the program will be bringing students to Paisley Park, it has also been important to the organization to create more educational opportunities for students in the arts. From music to theater, media and visual arts, Maguire hopes the partnership with Minneapolis Public Schools will inspire a wide range of young people in all areas of the arts Prince encompassed himself.
"Hopefully they spend a little time being inspired based on what Prince did and are able to take a little more of that inspiration and apply it to their own lives, with this idea that you can be from this community, like Prince was, and be a product of the Minneapolis Public Schools and go on to be great at whatever it is you do, so long as you pursue that with this sense of really pushing yourself beyond your boundaries and approaching that work with relentless work ethic that Prince did. The takeaway is that we want to be able to help these kids figure out who they are, where they wanna go, where they wanna be, how they can get there and, at the end of the day, figure out what their own legacies will look like."
Listen to Brian Oake's conversation with Mitch Maguire using the audio player above.
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