Valley pushes for a youth symphony
August 28, 2008
By Laura Geggel
When 13-year-old Elizabeth Bauer of Fall City began playing the violin in fourth grade, her family didn’t stop to consider the Valley’s lack of opportunities for string players.
“When she started, it never crossed our minds that there wasn’t an orchestra,” said Lois Bauer, her mother.
Students rubbing rosin on their viola or cello bows cannot be found en masse anywhere in Snoqualmie Valley. There is neither an orchestra program in the schools nor a youth symphony in the Valley.
“Snoqualmie Valley needs a string program to complete their music program, which is typically band, choir and orchestra,” said General Manager at Hammond Ashley Violins Bryce Van Parys.
Both the middle and high schools have choirs and bands. Dean Snavely, director of music at Snoqualmie
Middle School, said he will incorporate the occasional string student into his band, but there is no specific program for string players. Only the temporary volunteer pit orchestra, which plays for the musicals at Mount Si High School, includes chairs for violin, viola, cello and bass musicians.
“The Valley has plenty of orchestral players from second grade through senior year,” said Mount Si Jazz Band Teacher Adam Rupert. “They don’t have an outlet in K-12 pubic schools in the area.”
A group of parents, teachers and community members are working together to provide stringed opportunities for Valley students, both young and old.
This fall, Miranda Thorpe, co-vice president of the Fall City Elementary PTA, plans to submit a grant to the Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation for an elementary student strings program.
“I want to be able to provide a place for the younger kids to know what it’s like to play in a group,” Thorpe said.
Darlene Rose, owner of Rose Music Studios in Fall City and teacher at Snoqualmie Ridge Early Learning Center, would be the conductor for the after-school orchestra.
“A lot of kids will leave the area and drive 30-minutes or more to another youth orchestra,” Rose said. “It would be nice to have a community youth orchestra.”
The other youth symphony orchestras are all a trek from the Valley in places like Seattle, Bellevue, Everett, Mill Creek, Maple Valley and Tacoma and can cost anywhere from $300 to $1,000 a year. Many of these symphony orchestras require their students to play in their schools’ orchestras if there is one available.
“We require or strongly encourage that if your school has a program, you need to be in it,” said Ruth Brewster, executive director of Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra. “There is no substitute for the rehearsal that you get, in some cases, once a day.”
Brewster said private lessons are a boon, but playing in a group also teaches young musicians valuable skills.
“We’ve had students who have never learned how to watch a conductor. They play at 16 different speeds and there seems to be a race for who can get to the end first,” Brewster said. “Life if not a solo affair. It’s a team.”
Playing a stringed instrument – solo or in a group – has its perks. Northwestern University researchers published a 2007 study showing that the brainstems of students who played a musical instrument were more likely to be sensitive to speech sounds.
A 1998 meta-analysis in the journal ‘National Association of Secondary School Principals,’ showed that students enrolled in instrumental music classes scored better on standardized tests, earned higher grades and were more likely to hold leadership roles.
The list went on: the same study showed that playing an instrument helped improve memory, listening, recall and concentration skills.
Snoqualmie Valley youth should be afforded these opportunities, Rupert said.
Rupert said he hopes to begin the middle and high school orchestra as a bi-weekly, after-school activity.
He said he would like to house the practices at two different schools and have beginner and intermediate sections.
The program could be financed through grants from the Snoqualmie Valley Schools Foundation, PTSA and fundraising, Rupert said. The funds would pay for a conductor and supplies like sheet music.
Thorpe’s proposed grade-school orchestra could be a feeder program for the middle and high school orchestra program.
Once students become proficient in their instruments, they could join wind and percussion musicians. When string, percussion and wind instruments play together, the musical repertoire changes, allowing students to play more music from more genres, Van Parys said, adding that a full orchestral experience will give students a real-life dose of how professional symphonies work.
The Valley has already hosted a short-lived orchestral program. From 2001 to 2004, The SnoValley Youth
Hub organized the Snoqualmie Valley Junior Symphony, two groups – one in North Bend and the other in Fall City – with participation involving about 50 elementary and middle school students. The tuition-based program disbanded due to leadership problems.
If the after-school string programs successfully attract string players, Rupert said the Valley could start its own youth symphony in a few years.
Brewster, from her seat at the Bellevue Youth Symphony Orchestra, which serves 16 students from North Bend, Snoqualmie, Preston, Fall City and Duvall, said musical programs may take awhile to establish, but the rewards were palpable.
“Be persistent,” Brewster said. “It’s worth it.”
Comments
One Response to “Valley pushes for a youth symphony”
Got something to say?
Before you comment, please note:
- These comments are moderated.
- Comments should be relevant to the topic at hand and contribute to its discussion.
- Personal attacks and/or excessive profanity will not be tolerated and such comments will not be approved.
- This is not your personal chat room or forum, so please stay on topic.
If there are other like-minded parents who want to see a string program get started, we’re putting together a network. Contact me if interested!