Donating on a happy note
Gift of 24 violins to OrKidstra will help young musicians learn music
A group of musical young people sounded a happy note Friday afternoon, thanks to a gift of 24 violins to OrKidstra during a ceremony at Lansdowne Park.
OrKidstra is a free music program in Ottawa for those aged five to 18 who don’t have the opportunity to make music because of financial constraints, language barriers or other challenges. Modelled on the Venezuelan youth orchestra system known as El Sistema, the program is run by Leading Note Foundation, an Ottawa charitable organization.
The gleaming new violins were purchased with a $15,000 grant from MusiCounts TD Community Music Program, a music education charity associated with The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS). OrKidstra, one of 19 community music organizations across Canada who shared $250,000 in MusiCounts grants this year, will also use some of the money to buy new violas and cellos.
“It feels great getting new instruments because now we can have more kids playing,” said OrKidstra member Julien Brombach. Julien, who is going into Grade 7 and has been with the program for one year, plays viola.
Added flute player Ana Victoria Chouha, “It’s important that kids get music education. It’s so much fun, and I’ve heard it makes you smarter.”
The dozen or so children at the presentation were to join Canadian singer Serena Ryder on stage later in the evening for a song during her concert to kick off home-opener weekend at TD Place for the Ottawa Redblacks and Ottawa Fury FC. An avid supporter of MusiCounts, Ryder donated $25,000 to the organization this year.
The grant to OrKidstra couldn’t have been better timed, said Tina Fedeski, executive and artistic director of the Leading Note Foundation, in an earlier interview. “It’s opening up opportunities for much-needed instruments. Up until now we’ve been playing on instruments very kindly donated by our community (but) we are expanding our program so we’ve run out of instruments.”
That expansion includes an afterschool program that, this past year, saw three schools participating in Centretown and Lower Town. The foundation also runs a young persons’ choir and other music programs.
Some 630 children have played in OrKidstra since flutist Fedeski, her husband Gary McMillen and former National Arts Centre Orchestra cellist Margaret Tobolowska established the Leading Note Foundation and OrKidstra in 2007. Fedeski and McMillen own The Leading Note music store on Elgin Street.
The work of OrKidstra has taken on a special urgency because of cuts in public school funding for arts education, especially music programs which require expensive instruments and specialist teachers. Despite research showing the intellectual, emotional and social benefits of music for children, families are increasingly left to their own devices when it comes to their children studying music and many can’t afford it. That’s where OrKidstra steps in.
The members start with basic classical techniques and move on to play other genres. Taught by folks like National Arts Centre Orchestra violist Paul Casey, the children “learn to express themselves in a way that’s really beautiful and in a way that’s relevant to their own lives whether it’s pop music or world music,” said Fedeski. And, she adds, they learn life skills like commitment, discipline, patience.
Concerts give the children a particular reward. “It’s remarkable when you see the transformation of the kids after a performance, and they (realize), ‘Oh my gosh, that was really worth all that work. Not only did we achieve that excellence, but it was so much fun’.”
With 42 languages represented in OrKidstra, linguistic and cultural barriers can tumble when the children make music together and when their parents chat after a concert.
Fedeski said that studying and playing music can even help improve basic skills like numeracy and literacy.
The team work integral to an orchestra also nurtures important social skills like helpfulness and compassion, she added. “Working together, building a community is really important. Personal success is part of your goal in life, but it’s success as a community that’s far more important.”