Program gives youths access to free classical music lessons
By HANNAH WOLFSON
Newhouse News Service
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BIRMINGHAM, ALA. — Every Friday afternoon, the dingy rock club called Cave9 echoes with classical music instead of the usual guitars and amps.
On the stage, two kids fiddle with clarinets and trumpets while a young man who works nearby gets a violin lesson. In the rickety balcony, a brother and sister from the nearby public housing development sit side by side for a piano lesson while friends watch.
As the afternoon wears on, more people come in: One wants to try the flute; another's ready for her regular viola lesson. Some of the music is good, some bad, but it's all unexpected because the lessons — open to anyone who walks in — are free.
The lessons are being provided by Scrollworks, a new program inspired by Venezuela's revolutionary music system, which has created hundreds of youth orchestras in poor areas across the country. The group is giving lessons at Cave9, an elementary school on Birmingham's west side and a theater downtown, and plans to expand to a neighborhood church this summer.
So far, about 140 students are in Scrollworks. The ultimate goal is to give anyone in the Birmingham area access to music education, regardless of ability to pay.
"It's the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life," said co-founder Jeane Goforth, who spent her retirement savings — $37,500 — to start the program. The former stay-at-home mom spends her days recruiting students and teachers, and her Honda Element is packed to the roof with instruments.
"It sounds so grandiose and impossible, even to me," she wrote in her blog. "Until I'm standing there at Cave9 with music lessons happening in every corner, connections growing between races, ages, ZIP codes."
Since Scrollworks started a few months ago, it has had visits from everyone from a 7-year-old violist to a septuagenarian who always wanted to learn guitar.
"I could not believe it when I found out about it," said Teil Johnson, whose daughter, Layla Al-Hasnawi, is taking guitar and viola lessons. As a single mother, Johnson said she just couldn't afford music lessons. Now 8-year-old Layla is hooked, and Johnson has started studying piano while she waits for her daughter.
The organizers and teachers say they like teaching adults, but their goal is to give disadvantaged kids something to be passionate about, something to succeed at, something to keep them off the street. It's not always easy, and the teachers have had to fend off a few fistfights.
"We've had some crazy times and some stressful times," said Lauren Krothe, program director and lead piano teacher. "But the smiles and watching these kids fall in love with their instruments, just to see that happening before your eyes is amazing."
There can also be long-lasting benefits, said Anne C. Witt, a professor of music at the University of Alabama and the founder of a program that gives string lessons in the Tuscaloosa public schools.
"Music opens avenues of success for students, avenues that they didn't even know existed," said Witt, who is also president of the Alabama chapter of the American String Teachers Association. "And whether or not they continue all their lives, those avenues of success have been opened because of their success with an instrument."
That's the principle behind the Venezuelan system, nicknamed El Sistema, which has more than 200,000 young people in orchestra programs at any given time. A documentary about the program inspired Goforth and Nick Lacanski, a school music teacher, to start Scrollworks.
They're so enthusiastic about it that Lacanski, a big man with the gruff energy of a sheepdog, eagerly presses the DVD into visitors' hands, urging them to watch it and pass it on.
Started more than three decades ago, El Sistema offers free music classes and instruments for any child, whether they can afford it or not. Graduates have become stars in international classical music, including conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who will take over the Los Angeles Philharmonic next year. Although success stories like those are celebrated, the real goal is to provide hope to children who are growing up in dire poverty.
The program has spread throughout Latin America, and now several similar projects are starting in this country, including one in Los Angeles and one in New York planning a pilot program this fall. But none has been as successful as Scrollworks, said Jaime Austria, a bassist with the New York City Opera and American Ballet Theatre orchestras who helped start the volunteer group El Sistema New York City.
"I keep on telling people you've got to see what people are doing in Birmingham, you are way ahead," said Austria, who said his own program and others have been mired in research and fundraising while Goforth and Lacanski just jumped in with both feet.
Scrollworks recently received nonprofit tax status, and the organizers hope that pushes them to a new level. They've bought some instruments — and some teachers have donated their childhood violins and trumpets — but don't yet have enough to give everyone their own.
Some of the most committed children are being offered private lessons or a spot in the two youth orchestras that Lacanski and Goforth also started last year.
For example, Matthew Belser, 10, recently joined the Magic City Youth Orchestra, where he plays the trumpet, and was already taking private lessons. With Lacanski's encouragement, he now plays five other instruments — all of them well. At a spring concert, he was so excited about performing, he stayed in his seat after his turn ended and also performed with the older, more experienced Metropolitan Youth Orchestra.
His mother, Leslie, said she has been stunned by the effect music has had on Matthew, calling it "a godsend." She said the lessons and rehearsals give the children a rare chance to be nurtured and encouraged in everything they do. Everyone in the orchestra gets the opportunity to solo, conduct or even compose music for performances.
"You go in a skeptic and you come out with renewed faith in the world," she said. "It's a mission. They're doing it, and not doing a lot of talking about it. They're doing it for the children."
By HANNAH WOLFSON
Newhouse News Service
TOOLS
Email Get section feed
Recommend
Comments Yahoo! Buzz
BIRMINGHAM, ALA. — Every Friday afternoon, the dingy rock club called Cave9 echoes with classical music instead of the usual guitars and amps.
On the stage, two kids fiddle with clarinets and trumpets while a young man who works nearby gets a violin lesson. In the rickety balcony, a brother and sister from the nearby public housing development sit side by side for a piano lesson while friends watch.
As the afternoon wears on, more people come in: One wants to try the flute; another's ready for her regular viola lesson. Some of the music is good, some bad, but it's all unexpected because the lessons — open to anyone who walks in — are free.
The lessons are being provided by Scrollworks, a new program inspired by Venezuela's revolutionary music system, which has created hundreds of youth orchestras in poor areas across the country. The group is giving lessons at Cave9, an elementary school on Birmingham's west side and a theater downtown, and plans to expand to a neighborhood church this summer.
So far, about 140 students are in Scrollworks. The ultimate goal is to give anyone in the Birmingham area access to music education, regardless of ability to pay.
"It's the most exciting thing I've ever done in my life," said co-founder Jeane Goforth, who spent her retirement savings — $37,500 — to start the program. The former stay-at-home mom spends her days recruiting students and teachers, and her Honda Element is packed to the roof with instruments.
"It sounds so grandiose and impossible, even to me," she wrote in her blog. "Until I'm standing there at Cave9 with music lessons happening in every corner, connections growing between races, ages, ZIP codes."
Since Scrollworks started a few months ago, it has had visits from everyone from a 7-year-old violist to a septuagenarian who always wanted to learn guitar.
"I could not believe it when I found out about it," said Teil Johnson, whose daughter, Layla Al-Hasnawi, is taking guitar and viola lessons. As a single mother, Johnson said she just couldn't afford music lessons. Now 8-year-old Layla is hooked, and Johnson has started studying piano while she waits for her daughter.
The organizers and teachers say they like teaching adults, but their goal is to give disadvantaged kids something to be passionate about, something to succeed at, something to keep them off the street. It's not always easy, and the teachers have had to fend off a few fistfights.
"We've had some crazy times and some stressful times," said Lauren Krothe, program director and lead piano teacher. "But the smiles and watching these kids fall in love with their instruments, just to see that happening before your eyes is amazing."
There can also be long-lasting benefits, said Anne C. Witt, a professor of music at the University of Alabama and the founder of a program that gives string lessons in the Tuscaloosa public schools.
"Music opens avenues of success for students, avenues that they didn't even know existed," said Witt, who is also president of the Alabama chapter of the American String Teachers Association. "And whether or not they continue all their lives, those avenues of success have been opened because of their success with an instrument."
That's the principle behind the Venezuelan system, nicknamed El Sistema, which has more than 200,000 young people in orchestra programs at any given time. A documentary about the program inspired Goforth and Nick Lacanski, a school music teacher, to start Scrollworks.
They're so enthusiastic about it that Lacanski, a big man with the gruff energy of a sheepdog, eagerly presses the DVD into visitors' hands, urging them to watch it and pass it on.
Started more than three decades ago, El Sistema offers free music classes and instruments for any child, whether they can afford it or not. Graduates have become stars in international classical music, including conductor Gustavo Dudamel, who will take over the Los Angeles Philharmonic next year. Although success stories like those are celebrated, the real goal is to provide hope to children who are growing up in dire poverty.
The program has spread throughout Latin America, and now several similar projects are starting in this country, including one in Los Angeles and one in New York planning a pilot program this fall. But none has been as successful as Scrollworks, said Jaime Austria, a bassist with the New York City Opera and American Ballet Theatre orchestras who helped start the volunteer group El Sistema New York City.
"I keep on telling people you've got to see what people are doing in Birmingham, you are way ahead," said Austria, who said his own program and others have been mired in research and fundraising while Goforth and Lacanski just jumped in with both feet.
Scrollworks recently received nonprofit tax status, and the organizers hope that pushes them to a new level. They've bought some instruments — and some teachers have donated their childhood violins and trumpets — but don't yet have enough to give everyone their own.
Some of the most committed children are being offered private lessons or a spot in the two youth orchestras that Lacanski and Goforth also started last year.
For example, Matthew Belser, 10, recently joined the Magic City Youth Orchestra, where he plays the trumpet, and was already taking private lessons. With Lacanski's encouragement, he now plays five other instruments — all of them well. At a spring concert, he was so excited about performing, he stayed in his seat after his turn ended and also performed with the older, more experienced Metropolitan Youth Orchestra.
His mother, Leslie, said she has been stunned by the effect music has had on Matthew, calling it "a godsend." She said the lessons and rehearsals give the children a rare chance to be nurtured and encouraged in everything they do. Everyone in the orchestra gets the opportunity to solo, conduct or even compose music for performances.
"You go in a skeptic and you come out with renewed faith in the world," she said. "It's a mission. They're doing it, and not doing a lot of talking about it. They're doing it for the children."
