Musical Outreach: The Next Wave

By Barbara Jepson

The scene is a public high school auditorium in northern California. The teenaged audience members, most of whom have never heard a string quartet before, are restless and unsure of what to expect.

“How many of you have ever had a crush on someone?” asks Philip Ying, the violist of the Ying Quartet.

His question prompts a lot of giggles, and a brave show of hands.

Ying tells the students that they are about to hear an excerpt from Leos Janácek’s Second String Quartet, which expresses the unrequited love the composer felt for a young woman. “If you were a composer,” he asks, “how would you express the rollercoaster emotions you feel when the person you have a crush on says ‘hi’ to you in the hall, or asks someone else to the prom?” When the Quartet members play the volatile third movement of the Janácek, the teenagers are with them all the way.

This kind of imaginative, listener-oriented interaction between performer and audience exemplifies classical outreach at its best. Spurred by the “graying” of classical-music audiences, the erosion of public-school music education, and the desire to refute elected officials who view classical music as an elitist frill, more performers are bringing their artistry to a larger public.

“Outreach is a really important part of the life of a musician today,” says pianist Emanuel Ax, who has performed pro bono at a Carnegie Hall “Family Concert” with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and donates his time for a few in-school concerts with Midori & Friends each season. “If we feel music education is important,” he adds, “we are going to have to step in.” And Andrew Appel, a member of the outreach-oriented Four Nations Ensemble, warns of the consequences of failing to do so. “Unless we connect with every possible ‘interest’ group,” he declares, “our marginalization from society will become the most recognizable characteristic of the classical-music community, and we will continue to be viewed as expendable.”

Outreach in the ‘90s goes far beyond busing kids to concerts or occasional forays into local schools by symphony musicians. These days, an increasing number of artists are making outreach part of their concert touring, most often via one-shot performances in schools, hospitals, prisons, community centers, or corporate headquarters. And the most promising efforts involve ongoing, structured programs that integrate concerts into the school curriculum.

Five years ago, for example, the Four Nations Ensemble began an artistic residency program at Community School211, an elementary/middle school in the South Bronx, under the aegis of the Maidenform Corporation. Four Nations, a period-instrument trio, agreed to perform 15 mini-concerts during the school year. But before its first appearance, the trio asked some junior high students who had taken business courses to act as a marketing agency for the ensemble.

“Their job,” explains Appel, the group’s harpsichordist and fortepianist, “was to familiarize themselves with our product, which is classical music; use surveys and interviews to study the market, which was the schoolchildren; and develop an advertising campaign that would appeal to this market while remaining truthful to the product.” The project culminated in a spring concert at Merkin Concert Hall at New York’s Abraham Goodman House, with tickets sold at $1 apiece. Since then, no “marketing” has been necessary. Virtually the entire school turns out for the Merkin performance, and the students have gradually progressed in their ability to respond to classical music.

Another variation on the curriculum-based theme is outreach centered around a charismatic performer whose impassioned involvement galvanizes funding sources and audiences alike. The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra’s “Connect” program capitalizes on the zany, unpredictable antics and multifaceted talents of vocalist and conductor Bobby McFerrin, the SPCO’s creative chair. Founded in 1994 with the help of Artsvision, the arts-education consultants, “Connect” now provides teachers in 19 elementary or middle schools in the Minneapolis- Saint Paul area with curriculum materials linking music to math, science, reading, and other subjects. This instruction is supplemented by a half-dozen concerts led by McFerrin and in-school appearances by individual symphony musicians.

Midori & Friends, a foundation started in 1992 by its namesake, also sponsors annual performances in American and Japanese public schools. “I had been aware of the decrease in music education in the schools,” says the violinist, “and I didn’t want to see that happen. Music opened so many doors for me as I was growing up. It taught me a lot about history; it got me curious about literature and other cultures. I wanted to share that with children.”

During the 1995-96 season, Midori & Friends presented 100 in-school concerts and 10 after-school family concerts. In addition, a pilot instrument-instruction program was introduced at P. S. 160 in Jamaica, Queens, which had no music teacher or formal arts curriculum. Each school selected for the concerts receives handouts and other basic materials so that teachers can prepare the classes for the concerts. On the day of the concert, students are given journals in which they may record their responses to the music. Last season’s participants included pianists Emanuel Ax and Yefim Bronfman, the Maia Quartet, the Manhattan Brass Quintet, and the Topaz Jazz Ensemble; Midori performed in 18 schools. “I get to share my joy, my music, and myself with the children,” she says, “and this contact is very meaningful for me.”

Different but related ventures include the newly opened Specia1 Music Schoo1 of America, a collaborative venture between the Elaine Kaufman Cultural Center and Community School District 3 in Manhattan, which seeks to identify and train musically gifted children at the elementary level and was spearheaded by pianist Vladimir Feltsman, who subsequently withdrew from the project. And trumpeter Wynton Marsalis developed “Marsalis on Music,” a four-part series broadcast by the PBS television network, to teach the basics of classical and jazz music to young people in an accessible manner. One outgrowth of the project is that Marsalis was tapped last year by audio manufacturer Harman International for a series of 40-minute, interactive music-appreciation programs sponsored by the company for 8- to 12-year-olds in five urban schools in each of four cities: Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Participating schools received suggestions for follow-up activities and a donation of audio equipment and a start-up CD library from Harman. Clearly, there are economic incentives underlying most outreach activities. The $200-$250 per day earned by each member of the Four Nations Ensemble in its residencies are an important component of their livelihood at this point in their careers. The SPCO’s “Connect” program attracts donors who might not otherwise be interested in its activities. And local presenters have learned that booking a performer for short appearances at a school or local workplace in conjunction with upcoming concerts is a good investment in their futures, which, at times, boosts current ticket sales as well.

But these programs also have the potential to reap less immediately tangible, long-term benefits. In their quest to involve listeners as actively as possible, performers are eroding perceived barriers between classical music and audiences. McFerrin walks into the audience with microphone in hand, talk-show host style, and asks school children their names. Then he sings each name in a distinctive way and leads the orchestra in a rendition of what he has sung. On other occasions, he may ask the symphony musicians to remove their jackets and kick off their shoes before they play. “You have to loosen up,” he notes, “have fun with the kids, get them to improvise . . . . The most important element is just to show them how passionate you are about what you do and why you love music so much.”

Knowledge about a performer’s instrument is another bridge to understanding. “By the time the fifth performance in our series of ‘Adventure Concerts’ comes around,” observes the violinist Midori, “the children ask more informed, specific technical questions. They want to know how I make a different coloring or sound, what I think about when I play a certain part of the piece, how I execute a particular technical skill. One boy . . . asked if all of the music I had played that day was originally written for a dance. I had done the ‘Introduction and Tarantella’ by Sarasate, a minuet, and Copland’s ‘Hoe-down.’” This represents a change, she says, from the first few concerts, where the questions are more commonly personal: How long does she practice or why did she decide to study the violin?

Above all, listener-centered outreach helps undermine well-entrenched stereotypes about classical music. “The most common question we hear,” reports Philip Ying, “is ‘why do you move so much?’ This always amazes us. But we realize that kids grow up with the idea that to play this kind of music you have to sit absolutely still and be very proper. I don’t know if their parents tell them this or they just pick it up. We also get comments,” he continues, “about how refreshing it is to know that we’re real people, that we have a sense of humor and they can talk to us. I think that’s a misconception that adults and kids alike share; they think that performers are unapproachable.”

The Ying Quartet, founded in 1988 by four siblings at the Eastman School of Music, was awarded a grant in 1992 from the NEA’s chamber-music rural initiative program, which placed them in Jesup, Iowa, a farming community of about 2,100 with a heavy Amish population. By the time their two-year residency was over, a quarter of the town’s residents were turning out for their concerts. When the Quartet was invited to testify for the reauthorization hearings of the NEA, farmers and students came in from Jesup to back them up.

Eastman has now hired the Ying Quartet as full-time associate professors whose responsibilities will include performing residencies in nearby urban and rural public schools. Most significantly, they will teach Eastman students how to develop and participate in such residencies themselves. “One of our long-term dreams,” says Philip Ying, “is that as more young ensembles go through programs like the one at Eastman, it will make the arts much more democratic, so that there are excellent performing groups spread across the country, not just clustered in the main cities. And they’ll be able to make a successful living in places you wouldn’t expect.”

According to Robert Freeman, Eastman’s director, the Ying Quartet’s position will encompass teaching practical presentational skills, such as balancing talking with playing, what kinds of issues to explore or avoid, how to answer questions, and how to be more user-friendly. “I began to reflect,” relates Freeman, “upon the fact that this is supposed to be a music school, but we don’t really teach music. We teach instrument playing, conducting, Schenker analysis, and authenticating 18th-century manuscripts, but we don’t teach what musicians should do when they’re thrown in front of the 97 percent of Americans who don’t know anything about Beethoven, Debussy, or Bartók.”

In the meantime, those involved in musical outreach have some tips to share about what facilitates or impedes successful interaction. “What probably doesn’t work is unnecessary analysis of a piece,” observes clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, who has performed family concerts at Carnegie Hall and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, appeared as “guest DJ” on his local classical radio station in Massachusetts, and given short, in-school residencies in tandem with his concerts. “Music is so powerful and does better than words in so many instances that it’s almost as if you’re setting up an apology for the piece when you don’t need to.” Instead, Stoltzman plays music he loves that initially influenced him and led to his study of the clarinet.

“What works best,” he continues, “is giving kids lots of kinds of music to hear. It’s important to have music that is very familiar to them and music that is way beyond anything they would have ever expected. Usually the first piece I play is something where the tone itself, the beauty of the melody and the harmony, is inescapably pure and universal. It could be a Schubert song, an African folk melody, a piece of Stravinsky, or a contemporary piece. I’m a big believer in the quality of the tone touching people, no matter what the instrumental voice.”

The Four Nations uses the responses of the students as a learning tool. “I’ve made a habit,” says keyboard player Appel, “of asking how many kids did not like the piece just played. There is always a show of hands and, after probing beneath the initial negative response, some fine observations about the music are revealed.” As the children develop confidence in expressing their individual reactions, an emotional link is created between listener and composer. Appel recalls the day Four Nations performed the lyrical slow movement from Michael Haydn’s Divertimento in C for violin, cello, and continuo. “We asked the kids to close their eyes and let their imaginations draw pictures. When it was over, I. asked, ‘What did you see?’ One little boy raised his hand and said, ‘I saw God.’”

The next step is to present information about style and structure in resourceful ways. During the 1995-96 school year, the Four Nations Ensemble taught their young charges in the Bronx the concept of Revolutionary Music (defined as energetic and emotional) to characterize French music from the 17th and early 18th centuries, and Noble Music (refined, courtly) to characterize later 18th-century works. This season’s residency weeks, held for the first time at the art gallery of nearby Lehman College, are exploring the topic of thematic variations. By the time the trio performs its concerts, the students will have learned about the use of variations in art, poetry, math, and history.

Not surprisingly, the most rewarding experiences have occurred in schools with active, enthusiastic teachers or strong string and orchestra programs like those found in the Midwest. But it would be a mistake to assume that music education cannot happen without generous arts budgets and formal programs.

At the 1996 Grammy Awards ceremony, McFerrin challenged teachers not to wait for funding, but to bring their own boom boxes, tapes, and compact discs into the classroom and play a wide variety of music for their students. “It’s a really simple solution,” he declares.

Appel issued a similar plea in his address to colleagues at the 1995 conference of Chamber Music America.” Am I asking too much to suggest that every professional chamber ensemble can forge a relationship with one underserved school?” he queried. “Am I asking too much, or have we been giving too little?”

Barbara Jepson writes frequently on classical music for the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Stagebill, and other national publications.