Violins bring notes of joy, keener interest in studies, to city schools

After a lengthy dark period of pandemic-imposed silence, the sound of music is returning to local classrooms in the fall.

COVID-19 played a real number on music in schools, with most instruments and voices falling silent. Even after Ontario classrooms reopened for part of last yea, the provincial government soon branded music programs as mere extracurricular activity, nonessential to learning in an era of highly infectious disease.

What the coronavirus also ended was an innovative program that had just been launched at two Windsor schools in 2019. The String Project, modelled after a Venezuelan program called El Sistema, with hundreds of chapters now around the world, employs musical education as a vehicle for social development.

The Greater Essex County District School Board is the first school board in Canada to sponsor and support the program.

Three years ago, groups of incoming Grade 3 students at Frank W. Begley and Marlborough public schools in Windsor were handed quarter-sized violins and provided instruction by professional musicians. But the project ended when COVID-19 began.

“We’re starting from scratch again,” said Bernadette Berthelotte, the local public school board’s teacher consultant for the arts.

Ahead of a fuller rollout in September, a group of students who will be entering Grade

3 at those two compensatory schools in the fall spent an hour a day over three weeks in July under the tutelage of violinist Michèle Dumoulin, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra’s assistant principal second violin, and Nicholas Penny, the WSO’S assistant principal viola, both assisted by violin-playing public board teaching assistants who were members of the WSO Youth Orchestra.

The idea is to re-launch The String Project in September with the Grade 3s at those two schools and then keep adding new sets each year. Those enrolled will continue through the program — twice a week for two hours after regular classes until June — through to graduation after Grade 8.

“This will do a whole bunch of great things to high school music programs,” said Berthelotte.

Known to many as Dr. B., Berthelotte is a huge advocate and booster of music programs in schools who instructs future music teachers in the University of Windsor education faculty and who is also a member of the Windsor Symphony Orchestra herself, playing French horn.

“Less than one per cent of these students will end up making a living in music or the arts, but 99 per cent of them will become patrons of the arts, giving other kids lessons, playing the guitar at home, attending performances and supporting the creative community,” she said.

We need the arts for a democratic, civilized, humane society

Why violin? While it can be a “very complex instrument,” Berthelotte said it can be taught and played “one string at a time. You can concentrate on one finger at a time … it’s a most adaptable instrument.” To warm them up to the task, the budding musicians start with rhythm and clapping exercises, “Simon says” games and other “fantastic tricks and strategies,” she said.