 | Kentucky Project Coaxes Quartet Out of the
Conservatory By SARAH
CROCKER
In March, the Enesco String Quartet (violinists
Elizabeth Weisser and I, violist Adam Meyer, and cellist Chris Gross)
spent a week in rural Kentucky over spring break. Our residency was
organized and sponsored by New Performing Arts—a nonprofit
organization devoted to fostering live, professional performing arts
programs in schools and smaller communities in the state of
Kentucky—and generously underwritten by The Juilliard School. The busy
week included 13 educational programs in seven public schools for
students in grades K-12, one college convocation, two public concerts, a
recital broadcast live on WUOL Public Radio Partnership in Louisville,
and a workshop at a residential treatment center for adolescent girls
removed from abusive homes.
 | | Chris Gross
shows his cello to a curious fifth-grader. (Photo by Adam
Meyer) | |
As a member of the quartet, I feel very privileged to have taken part in
this rich musical and personal experience that coaxed me out of the
conservatory and put me into contact with communities that may need the
arts the most. During our tour, we performed for audiences of a variety
of musical backgrounds. It should not come as a surprise, though, that
the most rewarding encounters we had were with young people to whom
classical music was completely new. It was in schools that had no music
programs and in communities without access to performing arts venues
that we could make the greatest impact. To a young person uninitiated
into classical music, the power of music is awesome. Add to the raw
power of the music the absence of any negative preconceptions about
classical music, and you have an audience that is ripe for learning.
Because our music was so fresh to them, these young people could
appreciate its sheer power and were delighted in our willingness to
share it with them.Not everything about our tour went smoothly.
As outsiders, we were more warmly received at some schools than others,
and at times communication and understanding were difficult. There were
several recurring themes during our tour that were disturbing, not on a
personal level, but on a much more universal level. One was the modesty
with which we were received in many of the schools that we visited, with
the apology from teachers and administrators that the students really
"don't know anything about classical music." What is disturbing about
such a statement is that these students do know and appreciate music and
are, in fact, part of a culture that has a very strong folk-music
tradition of its own. To set classical music so apart from other genres
is to disregard the commonality of music's role in a culture. In
apologizing, these teachers and administrators were, in a sense,
dismissing the opportunity to understand and embrace what we were doing;
the ability to form a bond through music was overlooked.
 | | Beth Weisser
answers questions after a third-grade presentation. (Photo by Adam
Meyer) | |
There was a second (and much more upsetting) theme that permeated our
tour, and this was the pressure being put on students to perform well on
standardized tests. As the result of President Bush's far-reaching No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001, standardized testing has become an
increasingly prevalent motivator in public schools, particularly those
in high-poverty districts. Students' performance on standardized tests
has become a major barometer for the future of a school and its faculty
and administrative personnel. In the state of Kentucky, standardized
tests in the arts (yes, you can appreciate the irony in that) are
administered to students in the fifth and eighth grades. We noticed that
the majority of the classes we presented our program to were composed of
fifth- and eighth-grade students. As most of these schools did not have
the resources to fund music departments—and with the standardized
tests only a few weeks away—our visit to the school was often the only
opportunity to prepare students for these tests.Through our
presentations, we sought to sensitize students to the ways in which
composers and performers dare to express and create through music. We
engaged students in a variety of activities and, along the way, taught
them some basic musical concepts and terminology. But on many occasions,
in our five-minute break between presentations, the principal would rush
over to us with a list of musical terms outlined in preparation for the
standardized test: melody, harmony, dynamics, and timbre. And we would
be told, "It was very nice—but if you could just use
these words more, it would really
help them on their test."I hope that the students were able to
glean more from our presentations than a rudimentary knowledge of
musical terms, and that our visits to these schools will have more
far-reaching influence than in the form of a test score. But this
obsession with standardized testing, even in the area of the arts,
highlights not simply a flaw in the national attitude towards education,
but also a serious problem in the national attitude toward the arts.
Classical music has come to be viewed as so abstruse that its value is
only perceived in a statistic that is used to determine school
funding.If we each did not, in some way or another, believe in
the sublime power of the arts, we would not be here. Why do we so value
what we do, when so many others do not? And if we can validate this
dedication to ourselves, then why do most Americans feel so isolated
from it? Why are our audiences dwindling? Why are arts programs being
cut from schools across the country? Why are even the nation's major
orchestras struggling to survive?Somewhere along the way, we are
failing to bridge the gap between ourselves—the performers—and our
audiences. We are so privileged in the way that we can make the arts a
part of our lives, but the abundance of arts resources we take for
granted in New York is unfathomable in most parts of the country. As
wardens of music, dance, and drama, we Juilliard students have a
responsibility to take our arts to those places that need them the most.
In too many places, access to high-quality arts performances is simply
not available. The national apathy toward the arts is directly linked to
this lack of access.I urge Juilliard students to seize any
opportunities they may have to take their art outside of the
conservatory, and outside of our urban setting. Where there are no
opportunities, create
opportunities. We have the power to change the way people experience the
arts—and we have the amazing potential to enrich their lives in doing
so. In a time when the arts are too often seen as an accessory to daily
life, we can work toward building an understanding of the arts as a
central and defining element of our humanity.For more information
about New Performing Arts, their artists, and their programs, visit www.newperformingarts.org.Sarah Crocker is a master's student in
violin. |
