Public Is Invited to MPS All-City Biennial Music Festival May 6-7

Milwaukee Public Schools photo

(MILWAUKEE) — The public can hear 3,500 MPS student musicians over two nights — about 1,700 performers each night — when the 51st Milwaukee Public Schools Biennial Music Festival takes place on May 6 and 7 at the UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena downtown.

This unique event brings together students from schools all across the city to perform in choirs, bands, orchestras and world drumming ensembles. Performances begin at 6:30 p.m. each day and last about 90 minutes at the arena, 400 W. Kilbourn Ave.

The first MPS Biennial Music Festival was in 1924. Often, parents and grandparents in the audience performed as MPS students in the Biennial themselves.

Visitors will hear piano and guitar soloists playing in the arena’s concourse lobby area before the concert on May 6, and harp soloists performing in the lobby on May 7.

This year, music played in the auditorium before the concert will be compositions by MPS students in grades 3-12, from their general music, music technology, and International Baccalaureate music classes.

World drums will open the show. Concert-goers also will hear MPS student musicians in bands and modern bands, orchestras, choirs, and a trumpet fanfare.

The student musicians performing at the Biennial Music Festival will come from about 85 MPS schools. They will be led by 24 festival directors, 20 of whom are classroom teachers and four of whom are traveling music teachers for MPS.

Notable Growth in Music Education

Music at MPS schools has grown significantly since Milwaukee voters approved the 2020 referendum, which expanded funding for programs including music education, and the 2024 referendum, which sustained those expanded programs.

The number of classroom music teachers at Milwaukee Public Schools has grown by about 144%, or nearly 60 teachers, since 2019. The number of music instructors traveling among schools rose roughly 177%, or 16 more traveling teachers, in that time.

In 2019, band instruction was offered only at many of MPS’s high schools. Now, with the addition of so many music teachers, the district has been able to add ensemble music instruction in lower grades. MPS has eight new bands, two new orchestras, and about seven new choir programs in its kindergarten through grade 8 schools.

Because middle schools are advancing more students who have had music instruction, music instruction is growing at high schools, as well. In the 2025-26 school year, Rufus King International High School and South Division High School both added orchestra, and Casimir Pulaski High School has added choir.

MPS also has been able to add piano and guitar instruction in more than a dozen schools and added music technology in about 10 schools because of the referendums.

Beyond the joy of learning to play an instrument or sing, music education has been shown to provide additional benefits for children. Those include improved memory, attention, and problem solving, which extend to other academic areas, and sharpening of fine motor skills.

Preliminary estimates for a 2026-27 district budget show the same total number of art, music and physical education teachers in the district compared to this year.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. While it is believed to be reliable, Urban Milwaukee does not guarantee its accuracy or completeness.

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