♪ Music Playing ♪ >>> Coming up next on "Arizona Horizon", gen tech provides award whimming stem education with air program kids tech.

Participants graduate to work in impressive stem companies.

The orpheus choir has performed for 100 years, today they perform for us next on "Arizona Horizon."

>> "Arizona Horizon" is made possible by the contributions from the friends of Arizona PBS.

Members of your public television station.

>> Good evening and welcome to "Arizona Horizon", I am Steve Goldstein in for Ted Simons tonight.

A huge earthquake struck today off the northern coast of California.

Spark a tsunami warning.

At least 5.3 million people in California were under that warning.

After the 7.0 magnitude tremblor.

The or was lifted and the quake was felt as far south as San Francisco.

Epicenter about 50 miles offshore south west of the town our like a the intrigue around the execution style death of the CEO of united healthcare.

The bullets used had words written on them.

50-year-old Brian Thompson was gunned down a Manhattan sidewalk yesterday as seen in video.

Officials found the casing thats deny, defends and depose.

It may be a reference to strategies insurance companies use to prevent paying claims.

They now have a photo of the gunman without his mask on.

Incoming trump border czar Tom homan and talk show personality Dr. Phil visited the Arizona-Mexico Gorder today.

Holman is not waiting to set the groundwork for immigration crack town, holman and Dr. fill med with a group of Arizona sheriffs and then traveled to the border.

Another school shooting today.

This one taking place at a small Christian school in Sacramento.

Where two kindergarten students were shot and wounded.

Two boys ages five and six were being treated at local hospitals after a gunman opened fire at the feather river adventist school in Oroville.

A suspect found dead at the school with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The man has been identified but his name has not been released.

Police have information leading them to believe the suspect targeted the school because of his affiliation with the seventh day adventist church.

>> Jen Tex is helping shape kids tech programs with kids tech provides stem education to students and student that went through the program have gone to work with impressive companies.

Joining us is Michael Wilson and again tech training director Mike.

Thanks to be mere.

What is gen tech and how long it been around.

>> We are a tech up that provides cutting edge connection knowledge teaching robot I go,es coding.

3D cad modeling and preparing them for future jobs.

Getting the technology into the hands of kids so they can start to learn it.

>> It's pretty pioneering I am sure you have competitors.

This seems like something that needs to take hold.

>> Oh, absolutely.

When I remember when I was still in high school and in middle school, I would have loved to have this stuff in our classrooms.

You know.

It wasn't until I was a bit older in college, where I actually wanted to start learn big this stuff.

Who knows where I would be now if I started learning that when I was a lot younger.

>> You are doing well.

You are working for gen tech.

>> That's absolutely.

>> Michael, let's talk specifically about kids tech.

That seems to be really impact.

I know there are a lot of different aspects to it.

Give us the over all view and getting into more details.

>> The overall view behind the kids tech program is we provide a turn-key solution for schools, so the program includes an instructor, the curriculum and equipment to provide a stem program in the classroom.

So we are really focusing on targing kids in schools for during the day program so being an elective.

Many schools across the valley.

Kids rotate to music and Art they come to gen tech and learn about stem.

We have six different strands and developing two different other strands of technology for K-12 building a scaffolding model.

In fact you start with learning your numbers, addition, and subtraction.

Multiplication and move to like geometry, algebra, Cal clue us, we feel developed a scaffold curriculum with stem as well.

>> Are you working with different schools to let them understand what's going on or working specifically with the folks you send to the schools?

>> So we work specifically with our instructors we like to hire techs and turn them into teachers instead of turning teachers into techs.

We give them A lot of classroom management and behavior management training.

Technical train on this curriculums they are teaching.

We also support them inside the classroom so we always go in there with them.

Make sure that everything is going good.

And anything they ever need, my cellphone is on 24/7 and they can reach out.

>> Michael I ones Berhow the relationships with the schools starts.

That's fairly important to figure out.

There have been budget cuts in schools and whatnot.

Is gen tech offering schools something they wouldn't necessarily be able do themselves is and is that part appeal for them third part of that question is gen tech reaching out to you or you reaching out to them?

>> Both ways.

We are reaching out to them.

And vice versa going to events and thing like that.

The budget cuts have taken a big hit on schools.

To provide extracurricular activities we started a foundation to bring this into the schools.

The program now the school doesn't have to train a teacher -- hire a teacher, train them on the technology and buy all the equipment.

We have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of equipment that we rotate into classrooms.

If they want to start a stem program they can bring us in, a sustainable solution to indefinitely have stem at their classroom without the massive investment.

And technology is going to break.

Robots break, 3D printers clog and jam.

And their I.T.

department will probably not fix it.

If they don't have the expertise things just sit if a closet.

I have seen millions of -- a lot of schools that have seen millions of dollars waste in schools with when it comes it a grant to buy like robots or like to get a 3D printer that teacher teaches the program for a few years, and then the teacher gets a promotion, and become the principal or they move, or many things happen and teachers leave the classroom.

So then what about that next generation of kids coming up through that school?

Versus with our program, when our college students if our college instructor when his they say they finish the their degree and say I want to work for a big company and use my degree, we have a pipe line of instructors to keep the program going without skipping a beat.

>> Wow.

>> A very turn-key solution.

>> That sounds great to keep it rolling.

>> It's wonderful.

I have taught at many schools where they lost the P.E.

teacher or even a stem teacher and we come in and we subsidize that, we help alleviate that teacher shortage that's going on, not only in Arizona, but all around America.

We will always put an instructor inside a classroom.

>> I want to you both to comment on this.

But Michael, parent reaction has to be important in this.

They have to buy into in as well.

What reactions are you getting from parents saying this is a bonus I didn't expect this to be at my student's school and now he or she is a good career track.

>> The parent a Red Sox has been astounding.

They love us.

They love how we connect with their kids.

They love how we are teaching them something that is going to help them because we all know that tech is going to be one of those things where if you want to make a lot of money, you want to get into tech, and parents once they hear that, they think, wow, I wish I would have had this in my school.

They are really elevating my kids, a lot of self-confidence things too.

You know, children, when they see that they can do something, it really just alleviates them.

Brings them up and you know, they just see that smile on their face.

>> Michael, I want to talk more about parents or children endorsing it, but the reaction once they have achieved these things, we mentioned in the intro, they have gone to work with heavy duty companies too.

That's gotta be the proof that you need.

>> Yeah.

It's really rewarding.

I have also been in the class.

I started as an instructor in the classroom before developing into my role.

So I spent a lot of time at my CT teaching certification.

Going in there and seeing the kids, like when they get to press go on their robot.

Wrote all of this keyed code and it does what they want to do it and so excited that he got it to work.

Very rewarding.

But also seeing that these are career paths that they may not have known existed before too.

And that really opens them up to a world of wonder that they may not have known that was out there.

Especially with our focus being on title one schools where they may not have the resources to have if we are not there, for them to have those kind of programs.

It's really trying to -- giving them the ability to open up the world to them and say, like, hey, you guys can K.you know, these are Career paths, you continue on with this sufficient.

We'll help you get there.

And you know, the road is there.

>> That's very exciting.

Condition to both of you guys, Mike and Mike, thanks for joining us on "Arizona Horizon."

>> Thank you for having us.

Thanks for having us, it's great.

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♪ Music Playing ♪ >> I am Jeff Bennett tonight on the news hour, billionaire Elon musk visits Capitol hill with his plan to slash government spending.

That's at 6 on Arizona PBS.

♪ Music Playing ♪ ♪ Music Playing ♪ >> For more than a hundred years the orpheus male chorus of Phoenix has performed worldwide pro viewing high-quality entertainment and today we'll learn more about the nonprofit organization accompanned bay a performance, joining us today is director brook Carter Larson and executive director.

Along weapon members of the chorus but they will be with us later, thank you both for being here.

>> Thank you.

>> So Dmitry gave this away as we were preparing a couple of minutes ago, if someone had never heard the orpheus male chorus of Phoenix, give me the elevator pitch.

You have been around nearly a 10 century.

>> It's a pitch that we are a group of singers coming together on Tuesday night from a broad variety I have back groups and experiences things like that.

Ages 18 to over 90 in the past 15 years that I have been there.

We do sacred, secular, accompanied, A capella, old stuff, new stuff, just a wide variety of music and it's about the music the singers.

>> Your performers have been with you the entire 15 years and others that are now.

>> One of the singer has sung with the choir sin negligence 70 or something or ago almost 50 years I have new singers that started this past August.

>> What stands out to you about orpheus, why doesn't to get involved here?

>> I have found orpheus, I started in August, and it is just such a community of people that love each other and care for each other.

That's something that has really struck me in the short time I have been there.

And I feel felt that love towards myself as well.

Yes, they are singers but or fee sus a play -- orpheus say place they call home.

They refer to it as a brotherhood it's powerful the community they created truly.

>> How does one maintain a brotherhood like this?

Is it about love of music and feeling like you are working together as any team would?

>> You use the word team there is a lot of analogies between a square and sports team and things lake that.

And I noticed that on so many different levels.

Music brings us together.

The coral music and things like that.

On some levels.

We grew in size, we grew in number.

We grew in musicianship and audience, my first six, seven, eight years and something magical happened where this brotherhood this, camaraderie, this family that happened a few years before COVID and just really is a special thing.

>> That's exciting.

Dimitri brook was talking about giving the 30-second pitch with the different types of music the group does, how important is this time of year for what orpheus does, we always think of -- a lot of people think of choral music as far as the holiday goes, how important is this next month or so to the group [.

>> Two aspects the performance.

We hope our patrons think the holidays would not be the same without attending honor fee us concert we are excited to see them and fill their season with joy.

We want them to leave our concerts and feel up live the.

There is another component banked into orpheus and it was may understanding it was baked in from the very beginning that's our commitment to our community.

And so we'll be doing community caroling to several -- to Arizona veterans home in December, also to a senior home.

And we have done -- we'll do other work.

We have offered tickets to family provider, homeless family providers valley to our concerts as well.

That's another really important part of who we are for sure.

>> Brook, same question to you then, specifically about the community plus this time of year.

As far as the importance to the group.

>> So I think of our audience and our audience that on some of us come year after year and one of their comments to me is that they pout social media and stuff.

It's never Christmas, it's now the holidays.

Because I have attended honor fee us concert and things like that.

Yeah, so I mean, like she said, the orpheus is also about more than just the music the impact that we try to have and our focus the community and some of the outreach, different outreach events that we do.

>> Do all of your performers like the music the say way or some more traditional, how does it work?

>> Definitely not.

I can say I do pride myself on the music I pick, I really feel like it's one of the -- when I get feedback at the end of the year the singers of course they are not going to like everything but if they -- doing 16, 17 pieces and they like four attorney or 15 of them I count it as a win, the audience they say they appreciate the variety and deposit and this they are smiling one moment and maybe a tear the next it's really special.

>> I have to ask you about the struggles nonprofits and the arts went through with COVID and it's been a couple of years now.

But how does one remain optimistic in an industry like this, knowing that you are bringing an important product to the community but there isn't always necessarily a lot of funding for it support for it.

How do you bring that about and stick with it.

>> That's a real guyed question and true not just for orpheus but every performing arts and cultural organization in the state of Arizona and conversations that we have together all the time and I think part of that work is reaching new audiences.

Reaching our entire community through not just the people represented in our chorus, our theater companies, wherever, but also in our patrons and donors expanding that as well.

And I think you'll see that many of our organizations are doing a significant amount of outreach as well into the communities which is providing sometimes an additional source of funding as well.

But I think it's the bottom line is, this is something that we are all passionate about.

It feeds us because we are feeding others in the work that we do and I think that's why we keep doing it.

Why it's so important.

>> Brook less than a minute before we go to the music it self.

I have to ask you about the men do sing festival I think when people hear the male chorus they think, oh, that's interesting, I know there have been male choruses for centuries traditionally.

But a men do sing festival people don't think always about men as singers in the same way.

>> Right.

I can tell you at every level finding men to sing in your choir, junior high, high school choir and stuff like that.

And so this festival is meant to inspire young men, male singers to sing the rest of their life.

To see beyond in college and senior years and community squires I don't understand a high.

>> Thank you so much for being hear, we appreciate your time.

>> Thank you so much.

>> Thank you.

>> And that is all for this he since of "Arizona Horizon", I am Steve Goldstein in to Ted same your Honor now we leave you with music from the orpheus choir of Phoenix.

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