Reaching out through music
When everyday kids learn to be musicians, this is what happens.
IMAGINE being 10 years old and having the opportunity to perform with renowned musicians like Shelly Berg, dean of the Frost School of Music at the University of Miami, and classical music star conductor James Judd.
Thanks to outreach programs like UM’s Donna E. Shalala Music Reach, now entering its ninth year, and Miami Music Project, founded in 2008 by former Florida Philharmonic director Judd, young musicians in Miami-Dade have had significant opportunities to learn an instrument, develop their musical talents, and showcase their gifts at local and national performances.
All at no cost to the children or families, thanks to donors and the efforts of mentors drawn from the community and schools.
Children, some from elementary, through middle and high school, drawn from underserved areas in Little Haiti, Overtown, Liberty City, Little Havana, Goulds and elsewhere in the United
States have recently enjoyed the chance of a lifetime.
For instance, in September, more than 20 participants in the Miami Music Project, ages 6 to 18, were invited to play in Colorado with conductors and youth from across the United States at one of the opening performances at the National Take a Stand Festival. The event was a joint initiative of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Aspen Music Festival and Longy School of Music of Bard College.
At the same time, more than 4,000 Miami-Dade schoolchildren have received free music instruction and mentoring by over 200 Frost School of Music undergraduate and graduate students on UM’s Coral Gables campus and at eight sites the program serves.
The pairing, using music as the glue, builds life skills like teamwork, self-confidence and discipline.
For the students – mentees and mentors, alike – it’s life-altering.
“One of the creeds I live by is you learn something more when you teach it. You don’t understand anything unless you can ex plain it to a child. I feel being a good musician is only possible in how you develop your other characteristics that make you a better human being,” said Johnathan Hulett, a second-year Frost master’s student in the jazz performance programme.
Hulett, 24, is a teaching assistant and mentor for Music Reach. A few days a week, Hulett drives to Frederick Douglass in Overtown and Mount Olive Church near his home in South Miami to work with children. His passion is the drums, an instrument he discovered at two. Any surface, he quickly dis
covered, could be a per- cussion instrument. “Sometimes it chooses you,” he said.
Hulett also believes in giving back. It’s who he is, said Berg and Melissa Lesniak, Music Reach program director.
“One of the reasons I really do this is because it was the type of program I came up on as a kid. I see some kids, even some who are super talented, who might be more shy or reserved. I identify with the kid who touches every instrument to figure it out.”
Making a difference among the young is critical, Hulett believes. “It’s kind of like any type of circuit. If there’s something happening in the electrical circuit, if you want to stop the current, you have to chop off a piece of the wire. And youyou can implement something right then and there that will travel through the res st of the circuit. At that age, younger and more impressionable, t hey develop their personality and habit ts and the way they see the world. So you can introduce positivity,” Hulett said from a room aat Frost School of Music. “When you go into a community to see thee classroom or music room you see the areas as a whole,” Hulett added. “When I drive to, say, Overtown, it’s a complete scenery chan ge from here in Corall Gables. Looking at thee surroundings, you gget a sense of what iis happening in the neighbourhood and what kids are ex posed to and ex periencing before you haave them for that 45-minute block of time. I t establishes a connection that reminds me, in some way s, of the neighbourhood I grew up in. I’m doing it in part because I understand how far those kind of programs got me as a person and as a musician.”
Steven Liu, Miami Music Project’s new director of education, is a direct result of mentoring programs in the Los Angeles area. “If I didn’t have phenomenal music mentors myself, I was not going to go to college,” he said. “I was able to work with the LA Philharmonic, got hired as a teaching assistant and it introduced me to this concept.”
Renee Myrthil, a Kendall mum to six , saw first hand the benefits of music outreach with her children. Two came through Music Reach – eldest daughter Relyn, 19, is a concert manager at Mount Holyoke College Music Department, where she is studying music.
Siblings Kiera, 14, and Yosef, 10, are currently working with mentors at UM on Sunday mornings. Tayib, 8, and Chaim, 6, both violinists like their sisters, intend to join Music Reach when they are a bit older.
“This has been a great supplement in seeking musical education for my children,” Myrthil said during a visit to Frost School of Music. “Something like this would definitely not be affordable if I had to seek out music lessons. I understand the benefits of music.”
She cites how music enrichment feeds into every area of her children’s lives.
Sometimes, for instance, Yosef ’s mentor Tom will ask him to play a softer tone on his cello or perhaps one that is a bit richer.
“All of those things, yes, they are in music. But that also travels in how they deal with their day to day and relationships with siblings,” Myrthil ex plains. “Be soft sometimes. Sometimes be sharp. Be firm. All of these things will translate musically but personally as well.
“The arts, and music, not only makes great musicians but makes more sensitive people,” she said. “That is something we’ve grown up with and I’ve seen in the older children.” – Miami Herald/ Tribune News Service