Miracle on Rosewell Avenue

It was another one of those miracles that will never make the big time, but in my mind, is much more important than oil lasting longer than usual, an image appearing on a cloak or water turned to wine. I’m talking about working with 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th grade kids at Havergal school for six classes each over three weeks and then performing this morning with seven different groups on a stage with the instruments re-arranged to fit and different than they were used to. With 30 minutes to figure out with the seven groups who goes where and which bars to take off and on and to make sure they have the right mallets. Then of course, the kid who was absent shows up and wonders where to go or who her partner can be. And the other kid who was always in class was now absent. And where the heck is the Bb bar for that soprano xylophone? And where can we put each of the two pianos and the one marimba and the drum set and the Ghana xylophones? Had to figure it all out on the spot with some 120 kids. And the audience starting to enter. Oh, and with seven groups plus transitions, the concert was supposed to be 30 minutes long. Counting transitions and taking those pesky bars off and on. Like I said, a miracle.

 

But we did it! The kids did a great job just attending to the cues from my piano and adjusting in the moment as the music required. Two beginning jazz pieces for 3^rdand 4^th grade, an elemental Orff arrangement of an English rhyme for 3rd, a Ghana xylophone piece for 4^th, and three jazz blues with 5^th— one major, two minor, each in a different key. (Oh, how I longed for the chromatic Orff xylophones I had at The San Francisco School! And publicly announced my vision that Havergal buy some for the future. Maybe watching the kids taking them off and on with all the clatter they made while I was talking might have started that dream in motion!)

 

At the end, they gifted me with a lovely card the kids had made and though I still have two more classes to teach to 2^nd grade and kindergarten (a coda to the grand finale), I had a short post-concert break (after, of course, moving all the instruments back to the music rooms with the kids helping— no road crew for the Orff teacher!), so I sat down to read the little thanks the kids had written. The tears came more than once. 

Of course, not an ounce of motivation for doing this work is to make sure I’m properly thanked, but still we all want to know if our work made some sort of impact and the “if you see something/ hear something/ do something, say something” Golden Rule is inextricably woven into the fabric of any artistic pursuit. Like applause at the end of a jazz solo (and I got some when I played at the jam session at the Rex Jazz Club the other night!), it lets you know that you connected with someone and that indeed is both satisfying and a further motivation to keep going. 

 

What did the kids say? Stay tuned for the next post.