Chamber Music at New Jersey Youth Symphony

by Kristine Peters, Education Coordinator
Wharton Music Center

This fall, a variety of ensembles will be formed at the New Jersey Youth Symphony based on skill level, instrumentation and friendship; students in grades 3-12 are welcome to join the New Jersey Youth Symphony Chamber Music Program. Ensembles meet on eight Sunday afternoons for an hour with a coach from NJYS's roster of the foremost orchestral and chamber musicians in the state. Chamber ensembles will perform in recital on December 14, and select members are invited to participate in the Advanced Chamber Music program.

We caught up with Chamber Music Coordinator, Diana Charos Reilly, to see what she has to say about it.

Diana Charos Reilly, NJYS Program Coordinator and Conductor

Why do you love Chamber Music?

I love chamber music for the opportunity it provides – with so many students in only private lessons and large ensembles – to remain independent while still working within the structure of a group. They develop an opportunity to converse musically on their instruments and have musical conversations. They have the opportunity to work with coaches similar to conductors, but then have to be self-sufficient in the concert. 

 
Why is Chamber Music important?

Chamber music helps students develop a sense of independence on their instrument. So when they reach their larger ensemble, they have a stronger musical back bone. It is a continuum that prepares students to be ambassadors for the organization and mentors to younger musicians. 

What non-musical skills are you building?
We are building a sense of responsibility. They are required arrive early to set up and warm up. They can’t miss rehearsals, they can’t be late for rehearsals – they are responsible to each other as a team.

Tell me about your experiences in Chamber Music.
I started in NJYS at age 11, so all of my experiences with this organization are firmly planted in my memory. Chamber Music opened up a whole new world for me. As a flutist, I had to learn to conduct with my body to lead the ensemble. The individualized attention from the coaches was especially meaningful; they were demanding and challenged me to push my own boundaries. Additionally it was an intensely strong bonding experience with my peers—I’m still friends with members of my quintet.

Why is Community Education Important?
We at Wharton and NJYS have a strong responsibility to be in the community. Every concert we held last year brought an audience made up of three to ninety-three year olds. To me, that demonstrated the community’s powerful desire to see the arts alive. It’s constantly important to interact with our community, to hear their stories and bring music to them. We have the opportunity to help enrich our community with music and prove that the arts are still alive in NJ.

What kind of ways do the students surprise you?
How quickly they have the desire to achieve more than what’s asked. I’m talking about third and fourth graders asking to have “play” dates instead of watching movies because they want the extra rehearsal time. Older students in Youth Orchestra and Youth Symphony calling the building to request rehearsal space, not because someone told them to, but because they want to achieve their highest potential. These kids really get fired up!

How do you choose repertoire for this ensemble?
Once the groups are established and we know generally what the level is, the faculty choose repertoire based on the group they’ve been given. The first rehearsal is typically sight reading. From year to year we try to change genres to ensure exposure to various types of music. The kids are usually excited about what they’re given. 

This year violinist Milan Milinkovic is assisting the NJYS program as Strings Coordinator. Milan’s words sum up the importance of Chamber Music:

The greatest impact chamber music has on a young player is an interactive exchange with the other group members. Awareness, responsiveness, flexibility, and listening are some of the things each player will learn from being part of a chamber group. Each chamber group player will develop a sense of responsibility to the group. I believe that this responsibility makes students excel with ease. Most of all - it is fun!!! Chamber music is the reason why I became a professional musician.

Suzuki in El Sistema

by Shanna Lin, Curriculum Coordinator/ Viola Teacher
Paterson Music Project
from The Ensemble

While the Suzuki Method is usually considered the leading methodology for beginning level instruments, many people have the impression that it’s incompatible with El Sistema. For one reason, they think of Suzuki as a “private lesson” method; for another, they believe that since the initial emphasis is on rote teaching, note reading is taught much later. Ensemble playing is the core of El Sistema philosophy, they argue. And how can you play in orchestra without strong reading skills? However, I think that with some adjustments, Suzuki and Sistema can complement each other. It’s worth the effort, because Suzuki adds value to our work.

Suzuki’s greatest advantage is that it provides a long list of technique-building, beautiful pieces that children around the world can play. Because of the frequency of Sistema instruction, students can easily remember the music. Dan Trahey, Artistic Director of OrchKids, remarks that it is great for string students have a “songbook” they can all easily play together. At the first El Sistema New Jersey Alliance concert, Miki Hatcher, Artistic Director of CHAMPS in Newark, NJ, noticed students from different programs spontaneously playing together when they realized they knew the same songs.

The students at Paterson Music Project are always eager to learn new Suzuki songs because they can be mastered quickly, and therefore performance can happen more frequently. At PMP our violins, violas and cellos play the songs in the same key so that they can play together in orchestra. For beginning students, it’s a great way to introduce ensemble playing without the pressure of having different parts.

Paterson Music Project students rehearsing at Community Charter School of Paterson

For this method to work in El Sistema settings, it is important to include reading activities that allow students to develop necessary skills for orchestra playing. At PMP we perform Suzuki songs in unison from memory, then play 2-3 part songs with music. It’s very possible for students to develop both their ears and reading abilities simultaneously from the start, beginning to create complete musicians from day one.

I strongly believe that the Suzuki method can be a great addition to any El Sistema-inspired program curriculum. It ’s a simple way to provide students with music that is wonder ful to perform and also connects them to a larger network of musicians. How great it would be for all our beginning students to be able to come together and play!

Paterson Music Project Film

By Elizabeth Moulthrop, Program Director
Paterson Music Project

PMP spent the weekend on set at the Paterson Art Factory, capturing footage of students, teachers, administrators, and parents in action!  PMP had the pleasure of working with Genevieve Castelino-Merchant from Chakra Media Group, based in Chatam NJ and Faroukh Mistry, Director of Photography, based in Los Angeles.  The two worked together to create a video for PMP’s upcoming Building Harmony Fundraising Breakfast. 

Genevieve has embraced this project with such enthusiasm and passion, exceeding our expectations in terms of commitment and artistry.  Her vision goes beyond creating just a video for the Building Harmony Breakfast.  She hopes to create a documentary about PMP which will follow the students and program for five years.  The footage captured from this September will be the first installation of the long term project. This project is an exciting opportunity for PMP to tell its story to a larger audience and to gain publicity and funding so that the program can continue for many years to come. 

The two days we spent on set this September were very special for the parents, teachers, and students.  Parents shared their personal stories and described the impact PMP has had on their children.  It was touching and emotional at times to hear how meaningful the program is to some of the families involved.  There were also plenty of joyful, fun, and even silly moments.  The PMP students basked in the opportunity to be on camera, play their instruments, get close ups with their teachers, dance and sing with the fog machine.  We are so grateful for this opportunity and look forward to premiering the film on November 21^st at the Building Harmony Breakfast.

To make a donation or find out more about The Paterson Music Project, visit www.patersonmusicproject.org.

Study: Music Education Could Help Close The Achievement Gap Between Poor And Affluent Students

By Rebecca Klein, September 2, 2014
From Huffpost Arts & Culture

Closing the achievement gap between low-income and affluent students could be as simple as do-re-mi.

In a study out Tuesday from Northwestern University, researchers looked at the impact of music education on at-risk children’s nervous systems and found that music lessons could help them develop language and reading skills. The study is the first to document the influence of after-school music education on the brains of disadvantaged children, as opposed to affluent children receiving private lessons.

Researchers from the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern spent two summers with children in Los Angeles who were receiving music lessons through Harmony Project, a non-profit organization providing free music education to low-income students. In order to document how music education changed children’s brains, students were hooked up to a neural probe that allowed researchers to see how children “distinguished similar speech sounds, a neural process that is linked to language and reading skills,” according to a press release.


Photo of Harmony Project student, courtesy of Dr. Nina Kraus.
Students from the study, ages six to nine, were divided into two groups. The first group consisted of children who received two years of music education by the end of the study, while the second group of children had only received one year of lessons. This led researchers to discover that children’s brains only started to respond to the music education after two years of lessons. One year was not enough to have a definitive impact.

“We used a quick but powerful neural probe that allowed us to gauge speech processing with unprecedented precision. With it, we found that the brain changes only followed two years of music training,” Dr. Nina Kraus, director of Northwestern’s Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory, said in a press release. “These findings are a testament that it’s a mistake to think of music education as a quick fix, but that if it’s an ongoing part of children’s education, making music can have a profound and lifelong impact on listening and learning.”

Leaders at Harmony Project approached the researchers after the non-profit observed that their students were performing much better than other public school students in the area. Since 2008, over 90 percent of high school seniors who participated in Harmony Project’s free music lessons went on to college, even though the high school dropout rates in the surrounding Los Angeles areas can reach up to 50 percent, according to a Northwestern press release.

“Now we know this success is rooted, at least in part, in the unique brain changes imparted by making music,” Dr. Margaret Martin, founder of Harmony Project, said in the press release. Kraus told The Huffington Post that the study could be a case for expanding music education in school.

“It would appear that music is an effective strategy for helping to close the achievement gap,” Kraus said. “What seems to be happening is that this experience of making music is helping to create a more efficient brain, a brain that is going to be able to help a person learn and communicate, especially through sound.”

The Harmony Project and the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory have teamed up before to study how music education impacts students’ grades. Researchers previously showed that after one year, second-grade students participating in Harmony Project maintained or improved their grades. This compares to peers from the same schools whose grades’ dipped after not participating in music lessons.

“Existing research indicates that kids from poor homes are not learning to read in the first four years of school –- while kids from middle-class and affluent homes are,” Martin previously told The Atlantic. “Given the importance of reading in achieving an education, this finding is stunning.”