For Boston String Academy students, practice makes progress — all the way to Carnegie Hall
How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, goes the old joke. But for William Parkes, Bryan da Costa, and 21 other young musicians in the Boston string Academy’s youth ensemble, the answer is practice — and then don’t miss the bus to new York this weekend. on April 1, these local teens are taking the stage at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall during a gala recital co-hosted by several arts organizations, including Progressive Musicians and Virtual Concert Halls.
Boston string Academy, which serves around 130 students in total, was cofounded in 2012 by violinists Mariesther and Marielisa Alvarez: twin sisters who learned music in Venezuela’s storied national music education program, el sistema, before attending Boston Conservatory together.
they had planned to return to Venezuela after graduating, but when they saw that many Boston public elementary schools lacked their own music programs, they decided to stay and teach here. BsA’s first programs offered younger students from underserved communities daily instruction in the mornings before school, the Alvarez sisters said in an interview together at the program’s Chinatown rehearsal space. the performance-focused youth ensemble for middle and high schoolers was established later, and most of the students are veterans of BsA’s elementary program.
With those younger students, “the continuity of the work” is critical, Marielisa said.
“And also, believing in them, that they can do it,” Mariesther added. “We treat them like professionals from early on.”
that approach seemed to be paying off during the youth ensemble’s afterschool rehearsal last week, one of its last before the Carnegie Hall concert. the group had only been seriously rehearsing the most challenging piece on the program — an arrangement of the first movement of a Mendelssohn quartet — since January, said Marielisa. faculty member and conductor tony Morales raved about the students’ progress.
“they eat music,” said Morales, who is married to Marielisa. “You just put something new in front of them — and boom, they learn it. It keeps their energy up.”
the youth ensemble performs roughly 10 concerts per year, and adding new music “keeps it exciting for them,” Marielisa said. the Vivaldi Concerto for two Cellos in G minor, which features Parkes and da Costa as soloists, has been in the repertoire the longest out of everything the group is bringing to Carnegie. It was on the program for several of last season’s events, including dates at the Hatch Memorial shell with Boston landmarks orchestra and at the shalin liu Performance Center in Rockport.
But the two 18-year-old cellists, both high school seniors, said it “didn’t take much time at all” to get the Baroque concerto back in shape.
“It’s not a typical Romantic piece,” said da Costa. “It’s very fun to play.”
It’s important to strike a balance between challenge and feasibility when picking repertoire for such a performance-focused group, Morales said. “We could teach them something really hard and just do that piece, but I think they wouldn’t get the same benefit.”
this is the first time an ensemble from the program has appeared at Carnegie Hall, and its second trip to new York, said the Alvarez sisters. Because the organization was responsible for the trip’s expenses, including transportation and accommodation, they fund-raised more than $15,000 of contributions from foundations and the BsA community to cover the costs.
“even former students, people I hadn’t seen in years, when they knew about it they would donate,” said Mariesther. “It all adds up.”
At this point, the youngest participants in BsA’s first-ever class of students have graduated high school, and for the founders, the experience has been “transformational.” one of the oldest students in the youth ensemble has been Marielisa’s student since age 4, and that student “says she doesn’t remember a time without me in her life. I’ve always been there,” Marielisa said. “We really become a big part of their lives, and they become part of our lives, too.”