I had a quite wonderful experience yesterday at the Poe Elementary
School, one which I wish every Trustee could have shared. I went to a
performance by the Amelia Piano trio who we had engaged to come in and
play for a group of roughly 300 K through 3rd grade kids. Poe is an all
Black School (3 white faces out of 300, and I saw no Hispanics). This
performance was to follow the four or five weeks of music education we
had provided for these kids. It was, I promise you, a transcendental
experience to be there.
The leader of the Amelia Trio is a marvelous teacher. He stood up in
front of the kids and drew large pictures with a magic marker on a large
piece of paper encouraging the kids to guess who each was. The first, a
smiley faced be-wigged character with 23 children (which the kids loved!)
was Bach. It is hard to describe how totally enthralled the kids were
as they then listed to a short Bach piece (the three instruments, piano,
cello and violin having be previously demonstrated by the performers).
Next came a man with an angry face, so bad with money that he lost it
all in his life and when he died at 35 was buried in a pauper's grave
with many others and his grave is still undiscovered. This was, of
course, Mozart. After a Mozart piece was played, a picture of a third
man was shown, a few lines from Beethoven's 5th were played on the
piano, and three hundred kids cried out in unison "Beethoven!" The last
was Mendelssohn whose sister, we learned, was the better composer of the
two. The kids really and truly enjoyed themselves. But, more
importantly, they have learned to love classical music, and had
obviously learned a lot in the previous weeks with the Ravinia-provided
teacher.
We are really and truly doing wonderful things! And, I must say, as a
Trustee, I am very, very proud. These little kids, in the middle of a
very poor, very disadvantaged neighborhood, have had a chance to reach
for the stars. I suspect we have begun them on a lifetime of music
appreciation. I believe deeply in the concept that these young children
will soon go underground as they get old enough to be "cool", but like
the 17 year cicadas, will emerge in their 30's and 40's and find their
way to Ravinia or downtown to the CSO. I make quite a number of small
contributions to various civic and community organizations, but none
that makes me as proud as that to the Education and Community
Partnerships work. Bravissimo to all those who work so hard to make
this happen. And a particular kudos to Luciano who did a wonderful job
of liaison with school and performers and made the entire thing come off
seamlessly without a hitch.
Loring W. Knoblauch