Ellington hosting kids' holiday concert

No real discernible songs can be heard coming from inside one of Lynchburg College’s Hebb Music Center labs.

It’s more a cacophony of notes, conversation and laughter from the handful of preteens seated in front of the lab’s pianos.

The kids, all from the Jubilee Family Development Center, are here working with Lynchburg College students as part of The Ellington Fellowship Playhouse’s Music Bridge Program, designed to expose children to music.

The results of those efforts will be shown off in a holiday concert, scheduled for this weekend (see box for details).

“We believe music is the language that everyone speaks,” says Susie Owen, an Ellington board member. “We’re always trying to get people to know that The Ellington is a community resource. It’s not just about entertainment.”

Getting children involved is something they’ve done since the mid-1980s.

“The Ellington’s mission is to identify, cultivate and expose musical talent to the area,” says James Arnold, board vice president and one of the Rivermont Avenue venue’s founders.

Soon after The Ellington opened in 1984, they formed a youth jazz ensemble among area high school students.

“The biggest concern we had was that we recognized kids from disadvantaged, low-income communities didn’t try out for the ensemble,” Arnold says. “And we know why that is. The parents don’t (always) have the resources.

“The most at-risk part of our community’s youth doesn’t have an opportunity. We decided that we had to find a way to reach younger people from that disadvantaged group.”

The Music Bridge Program grew out of an after-school program they started with Lynchburg’s parks and recreation department in 1993, officially phase one of the program.

Arnold says they asked musicians set to play at The Ellington to also perform for kids; the first program they did was called “From Louis to Nelly,” exploring musicalgenres from Louis Armstrong to R&B artist Nelly.

“Phase one (was) introducing them to live music … and to really appreciate music and what it could do for them,” Arnold says. “What we learned from doing that was that most of these kids had not seen a live musical concert, except at church.”

The scene at LC’s Hebb Music Center is phase two: hands-on instruction from a group of the college’s music education majors.

The piano lessons began this fall, not long after The Ellington and LC partnered up.

They are something music professor Cynthia Ramsey had always wanted to do for her own students, and the partnership with The Ellington came about when she heard about Music Bridge from Owen.

“James (Arnold) had the funds, and I have the teaching expertise and the teaching assistants,” says Ramsey. “We just needed the children.”

The Ellington had stopped working with the parks and recreation department at this point, so Arnold talked to Jubilee director Sterling Wilder, a longtime friend, about doing the lessons with kids there.

“It all came together from that point,” Arnold says. “It’s just a perfect fit.”

Wilder chose 10 students he thought would excel in music, and they began working with a group of about four or five LC students, led by junior Mickey McKinstry.

“Some of them were in band and could read notes, but we started them all from scratch,” Ramsey says.

Each college volunteer has an individual teaching style. During a recent session, one slapped her leg and counted while her pupil played, an effort to help him keep the beat, while another sang along to the notes her student was playing.

“It’s cool to watch them learn,” says McKinstry.

“They’re really great kids. They get frustrated, (but) it’s normal. I tell them that all the time. We also have those problems. We can relate to that, so it helps them.”

Twelve-year-old Alahna Moss, a Sandusky Middle School student, says she agreed to participate in the program because “I’m very musical.”

“I like music because it’s a way to express myself,” she adds. “You can play it rather than say it.”

Most of the 10 kids involved in the program will continue with it in the spring. Arnold says they’d like to bring in new ones, too.

“This is a start,” he says, adding that he hopes the program shows the value of music education.

“Statistics have indicated that those kids who learn to play an instrument of some sort wind up being better students,” he says. “It builds confidence.

“I look at learning an instrument as a gift that keeps on giving. It’s a lifetime treasure.”

IF YOU’RE GOING
WHAT: The Ellington’s Music Bridge Program Holiday Concert
WHEN: 7 p.m. Dec. 14
WHERE: Lynchburg College’s Hebb Music Center in the Snidow Chapel
ADMISSION: Free
INFO: (434) 845-2162 or www.theellington.org.