Donated instruments help students in cities play music
Some of the greatest musicians in the world did not come from privileged backgrounds.
As children, many of America’s future Charlie Parkers, Louis Armstrongs, Freddie Hubbards and Art Blakeys can’t buy their own instruments.
But at some point, they were able to obtain one and begin the journey to learn how to play.
The issue recently attracted widespread attention when “The Last Repair Shop,” a short film on those who work behind the scenes to maintain 140,000 instruments owned by the Los Angeles Unified School District won the Oscar for best documentary short film.
While the work Los Angeles does becomes less common as time goes on, in many of Connecticut’s larger cities, a family’s economic status is not a barrier to picking up a sax and learning how to honk and wail, music educators say.
“We never turn a student away that wants to play an instrument,” said Ellen Maust, supervisor of performing and visual arts for the New Haven Public Schools system. “If they don’t have the funds to get an instrument, we will make sure that they have an instrument.”
If a family can’t pay, more often than not the school will waive fees and just lend them the instrument after they sign a contract, officials from public school systems across Connecticut said. Some schools get donated instruments that are repaired and loaned to students.
In New Haven, schools tend to have maintenance fees instead of rental fees.
“It’s different in every school,” Maust said. “Some don’t charge anything. Some charge by the kind of instrument it is.”
She recommends $40, but parents can just sign a contract to take responsibility for the instrument if there isn’t that maintenance fee.
It’s not the same everywhere. But in interviews with music educators throughout the state, the idea that money should not be a barrier — and isn’t — when it comes to music education was a constant drumbeat.
Differing needs
On Friday, the new sixth grade jazz combo rehearsed Herbie Hancock’s “Watermelon Man” at John S. Martinez Sea and Sky STEM Magnet School in New Haven’s ethnically and economically mixed Fair Haven section. The student musicians all have unique circumstances, but share one thing: a love of music.
Jeremiah Hicks, 12, one of three saxophone players, was using an alto sax his parents bought him on Amazon for about $500. He also plays electric guitar — and they picked up that and his amplifier at Guitar Center.
Arianna Melendez, 11, who plays tenor sax after initially trying out the trumpet, uses a saxophone supplied by the school because, at this point, he doesn’t have one of his own.
Bianca Darice Lizbeth Gonzalez, uses the school’s Tama kit now but soon will unleash her 4 foot, 9 inch frame on her very own drum set.
“It makes me relax,” she said of her decision to play the drums.
Teacher Jose Lara, who played trombone Friday along with his students, said the students pay a maintenance fee but it’s flexible.
Jill Russell-Benner, Music Department head for Danbury Public Schools, said she understands the difficulties many families face buying or renting musical instruments for their children.
“I was raised by a single mother and understand first-hand how much of a financial burden instrument rentals are for families,” RussellBenner said. “I believe what we are able to provide our students with the support of the community and district administration is invaluable.”
Russell-Benner was intrigued by “The Last Repair Shop” movie, which is available to watch both on Disney+ and for free on YouTube.
“Like the students we serve each day in Danbury, the repair shop workers all come from diverse backgrounds and through this documentary share their story of how in many ways ‘music saved them,’ ” she said. “The youngsters impacted by music in this documentary
mirror our students.”
Danbury’s rental fees are typically $50 per year, done on a sliding scale for all families, based on need, Russell-Benner said.
“The rental fee goes directly back to our instrumental program to support our inventory and replace lost, stolen or replacement instruments,” she said. “Over the past four years we have been able to add more than 30 additional band and string instruments to our inventory.”
Danbury has partnerships with “grantors” that help provide free instruments, she said.
“Our elementary instrumental program has over 1,000 students enrolled in third through fifth grade,” she said.
‘Hundreds of instruments’
Meanwhile, Bridgeport Public Schools maintains “hundreds of musical instruments” of its own, said Sarah-Jane Henry, that district’s director of performing and visual arts.
“They are all in different states of repair, but using COVID relief money we are refurbishing them, cannibalizing those that are too far gone to provide parts for those that we can repair,” Henry said.
“If a student wants to play an instrument, we have the instruments,” Henry said. “We have a $30 maintenance fee. But if the parents can’t pay it, we can waive it ... We don’t say no.”
The maintenance fee covers things, such as valve oil for brass instruments or reeds for woodwinds, she said.
Bridgeport also has a
partnership with KEYS, a Bridgeport nonprofit that comes into schools to give individual lessons, Henry said.
“Kids come to school for art and music,” Henry said. “So if we can have a rich arts program in our schools, we can get the kids to come to school.”
West Haven’s fastgrowing band and music programs at Carrigan Intermediate School, Bailey Middle School and West Haven High, offers several options for getting instruments, said Scott Shand, coordinator of fine arts for West Haven Public Schools.
“The West Haven community has been very good at donating musical instruments, which we refurbish and keep for students who may not have the means,” Shand said.
The district also gets help on repairs.
“We have students and families who rent from their choice of music store, but West Haven offers options of stores that come to service instruments directly to the schools,” he said. “We use Connecticut Music and JC Music to come repair our instruments and students who use them may not have to worry about repair bills,” he said.
Horns For Kids
New Haven — and many music programs across Connecticut — also works with a Hamden nonprofit, Horns For Kids, started by two retired music teachers. It accepts instrument donations, refurbishes them and then puts instruments in chidlren’s hands through their schools.
“If we’re talking about ‘The Last Little Repair Shop,’ that’s them,” said Maust.
Horns For Kids co-directors Fred Rossomondo, who taught music in Wallingford schools for 32 years, and Lee Walkup, who taught music in Shelton for 32 years, both got involved after each retired in 2003.
“Horns For Kids is a charity that we’ve run since 2003,” Rossomondo said. “It’s to support music education in schools, and the way we do that is by trying to make available instruments.”
Twice a year, they post lists of more than 40 instruments — sometimes 50 or 60 — that are available, including woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion, keyboards and guitars, he said.
“We’ve given out like 200 instruments in 20 years, like $2 million in instruments,” Rossomondo said.
He said the donated instruments often need to be fixed and they’ll have to decide whether it’s worth having them and their seven-member team fix it.
“We’ll fix it if they can do it for about $100,” he said.
If they ever are given a particularly high-end instrument, they seek to trade it for multiple other instruments, he said.
“We make nothing off this charity, by the way,” Rossomondo said. “We pay for the phone. We pay for the gas.
“But when that kid is given this opportunity, then he has a chance,” Rossomondo said. “You can walk into a first rehearsal as a sixth grader in a middle school, get in the band — you don’t have to know anyone in the band — and all of a sudden you have 40 friends.”
Getting instruments in kids’ hands
Meriden Public Schools has been “highly focused for years on equity in the arts,” and as part of that acquired their own instruments, said Brian Cyr, the district’s fine arts coordinator for music, theater and visual arts, as well as Maloney High band teacher.
“We charge a very small fee to rent an instrument ... $70 for the year,” Cyr said. “We never turn a student away because they’re not able to afford (it.)"
In those cases, they’ll reduce the fee.
“We just don’t want to be in a situation where we’re turning away students,” he said.
Cyr, also the Connecticut Arts Administrators Association’s vice president, said he’s mindful people could spend well over $1,000 to buy a saxophone.
“There’s such a huge disparity in the quality of instruments,” Cyr said. “You can go into a big box store these days and buy a clarinet for $250.”
He cautioned it won’t work for the students though.
“It’s such a low quality that a repair shop that’s going to do basic maintenance isn’t going to work on it,” Cyr said. “They don’t want to guarantee that work.”
Meriden has close to 800 students playing music in its schools. About 90 percent of them get instruments from the schools and about 40 percent are on some sort of financial arrangement, he said.
Middletown also provides musical instruments for free to students whose families can’t afford them, said Communications Director Jessie Lavorgna.
“We wholeheartedly believe cost should not be a barrier to wanting to learn how to play an instrument,” Lavorgna said.
Kathleen Steinberg, spokeswoman for Stamford Public Schools, said Stamford provides free instruments for those students in all grades where music education is taught, including grades 4 through 12.
Amy Perras, instructional supervisor for music, art and library media for the Milford Public Schools — and president of the Connecticut Arts Administrators Association — said every district handles instrument distribution a little differently.
“Our students rent instruments from approved vendors at very, very reasonable rates,” Perras said.
But exceptions are made all the time.
“If a parent comes and says they can’t (pay), we make it happen for them,” Perras said. “We provide them with an instrument ... The state of Connecticut is incredibly supportive of the kids and music.”