Ready For A Bow
Budding strings program ends season on high note

 

FLAGLER NEWS-TRIBUNE

JANETTE NEUWAHL - STAFF WRITER
May 20, 2006; Page 01A

PALM COAST - Just a few months ago, Megan Cash had never picked up an instrument and the 14-year-old had no clue how to read the complex staff of notes in a music composition. But after seeing a classical string quartet perform at her school, she was entranced.

"I thought, 'This is what I really want to do,' " said the Buddy Taylor Middle School pupil.

With the chance to join an after-school strings program, Cash went home and signed on to eBay. Using her savings, she bought a 50-pound cello and now lugs around the instrument twice a week so she can practice with more than 100 other students in the Flagler Strings program.

Where she used to play one note for an entire song, Cash can now sight-read music and most of the time, she can keep up with the group. She is just one of the students who will be performing a showcase of classical pieces at the program's final concert of the year Wednesday at the Flagler Auditorium.

The concert, titled "Take a Bow," includes some of the students' favorite pieces they have learned during the year, including the music of Bach, Handel, Beethoven and Wagner, said conductor Jonathan May.

The strings program has come a long way since it began two years ago. When the group formed, parents hired May to teach the violin to their budding musicians. Only about 14 students stuck with the program because of the $450-per-year cost.

This year, the Flagler County School District offered to pay for the program and 114 pupils - from elementary to high school - signed up, said coordinator Cheryl Tristam.

May, of Winter Park , said he wants the program to teach students how to read music at an early age so they can gain a lifelong appreciation for the art form. He also wants the violin and cello players to have fun while learning to play classical music as a group.

"If kids at a young age have the ability to be flexible (musically), they'll be able to do it forever, so we are trying to instill this in them," May said. "Once they start reading, they start blossoming and it really becomes a language for them - all of them want to play Bach now."

With the progress so far, May is excited that the program could morph into a youth orchestra - like the 350-piece one he conducts in Orlando - in the coming years.

Flagler County Schools Superintendent Bill Delbrugge also hopes the program will flourish into something more students will join. Delbrugge, who plays the trumpet, was so impressed with the strings program this year that he agreed to accompany the group during the "Prayer of St. Gregory" at the concert.

"They have made tremendous improvement this year - each concert gets better and better," said Delbrugge, who started his education career as an assistant band director in Tennessee .

In addition to their teachers, parents also are thrilled with the program. Korona resident Lisa Reedy, whose son Jacob, 14, and daughter Hannah, 7, are both violin players, said that with five children she could not afford private music lessons, but the program has given her kids a place to learn music for free.

"Music is a fine art that children should gain an appreciation of," she said.

Reedy added that she's noticed a quick progression of the group.

"I'm shocked that a room full of children could grasp as much as they have in such a short amount of time," Reedy said. "I really hope that this is a program that's here to stay."

So does Cash, who plans to continue playing her cello indefinitely. That doesn't mean she's not jittery about performing next week though.

"I'm somewhat nervous about keeping up and keeping my cool, but I pretty much have confidence," she said.

If You Go

The Flagler Strings program's year-end concert "Take A Bow" will feature classical music performed by students in the Flagler Strings program, one piece accompanied by Superintendent Bill Delbrugge and Flagler Palm Coast High trumpeter Alex Reese along with Orlando's Cypress String Quartet.

WHEN: 7 p.m. , Wednesday

WHERE: Flagler Auditorium, State Road 100.

ADMISSION: Tickets are $5 for adults; children younger than 18 are admitted free.

MORE INFORMATION: Call the auditorium at (386) 437-7547 or visit the program's Web site at flagleryouthorchestra.org.

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Flagler program offer youth strings and more

 

DAYTONA BEACH NEWS-JOURNAL

LAURA STEWART - FINE ARTS WRITER
October 2, 2005 ; Page 01G

PALM COAST - Nearly 40 faces lit up last week in the band room at Buddy Taylor Middle School, and nearly 40 small bows prepared to touch strings. At the front of the room, cellist Jonathan May called out the 4 p.m. class’s by-then familiar, on-your-mark commands: “Statue of Liberty position! Instruments under the jaw!”

The sounds of “Mary and Larry Had a Little Lamb” filled the big, bright room, and rehearsals for Wednesday’s first-ever Flagler Youth String Orchestra concert were under way. As the players crawled through the tune, their teacher moved along their ranks. May, the artistic director of Florida Young Artists Orchestra who every week reaches about 450 students throughout Central Florida, checked a note here, tightened a string there, smiled.

And, slowly, the group made music. It was only their eighth lesson, and students like Cheyenne Moore, 9, a fourth-grader at Old Kings Elementary School in Palm Coast paid careful attention to each note, each gesture, each instruction. After playing May’s arrangement of “D Major Scale,” the group listened quietly to their teacher. “Today I want to talk about three very, very important things for you to think about,” he said.

“One, we have to have very even bow speed - that’s how fast your bow goes across the strings,” May said, and demonstrated on his cello. “Two, bow pressure. That is the amount of weight on the string - it should make a U-shape into the string.

“And the last thing. As I was walking around I heard,” and he paused to play his instrument in a scritch-scritch-scritch pattern. “The last thing is bow placement. It has to be between the bridge and the fingerboard - the bridge is like the highway; the sides are like the ditches. And you want to stay on the highway, don’t you?”

The students agreed, then recited the three rules before moving into “Au Claire de la Lune,” the French folk song that’s also on Wednesday’s program. Hope Swire-Laws, whose son Tyler Swire sat near the front of the room, nodded. “They’re supposed to practice at least 10 to 15 minutes each day, after each class, and it’s not easy for Tyler to do that.

“But he wanted the violin - he liked the sound of it, the music it made,” Swire-Laws said. “Last year he played the steel drums, but the violin was different. He says he wants to stay with it, and I think we’ll get him a private tutor to help him. He plays a3/4-size violin and does pretty good with it - it was total chaos in here the first class, but it’s really settled down.”

That’s because he really likes the violin, and because the concert is right around the corner, said Tyler , 10, a sixth-grader at Indian Trails Middle School . “I knew I’d like it because my older half-brother and half-sister play it too, and I liked the way it sounded on the radio. I know I’ll like it even better when I learn how to play it. The violin makes such a pretty sound.”

If You Go

WHAT: The Flagler Youth String Orchestra, with cellist Jonathan May and The Cypress String Quartet.

WHEN: 7 p.m. Oct. 5.

WHERE: Flagler Auditorium, 3265 E. Highway 100, Bunnell.

TICKETS: $5 for adults, free 18 and younger. For tickets, call (386) 437-7547.

To Join

Students interested in violin, viola, cello or double bass may join the String Orchestra’s winter session that begins Oct. 10. The program, sponsored by the Flagler County School District , is free and students may register between Oct. 3 and Oct. 10 by contacting cheryl@flagleryouthorchestra.org or by calling Cheryl Tristam at (386) 263-2543.