San Bernardino Symphony Guild brings music to Highland schools

The San Bernardino Symphony Guild sponsors a number of educational music programs for students in the San Bernardino City Unified School District. Last week, two Highland elementary schools received visits from members of the Guild’s “Musicians in the Schools.”

The acclaimed outreach program brings professional string, brass, and woodwind ensembles to upper-grade elementary school classrooms for a performance and standards-based music education.

The purpose of the program is to demonstrate the relevance of classical music, raise cultural literacy, and motivate young people to become more musically involved.

Apparently, this has worked.

Since the program’s inception in 2009, the San Bernardino City Unified School District has shown a 34% increase in instrumental music enrollment.

This past Tuesday, the Symphony’s string trio came to Highland-Pacific Elementary School.

Lead by cellist Ana Maria Maldonado, the trio also included violinists Thomas Sender and Laura Rosky-Santoni.

Each musician demonstrated their instrument, playing a brief, recognizable piece to the applause of the assembled students.

Then Maldonado quizzed the students on the four families of instruments: strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion. The string family, we learned, consists of wooden instruments with four strings that are played with a bow and many hands raised as she asked who could name the members of each orchestral family.

Following, the trio took the students on a musical tour of international classics beginning with the bouncy Pineapple Rag, then some Bach, a lively Hungarian Dance, bit of Mozart, and several other tunes, all along explaining the background of the composers and the historical framework of the music.

Student Victoria Aispuro, 12, said she loved the music and looked forward to the performances.

“My parents listen to classical music at home, so this is what I like, too,” she said.

Her classmate Daniel Villarruel, also 12, similarly enjoyed the performance.

When asked if this type of music was what he listened to on the radio he said, “Sure. I’ve wanted to listen to it on the radio because I’ve heard it here.”

On Friday, Cypress Elementary School was paid a visit by another Musicians in the Schools ensemble.

A brass trio, led by French horn player Audrey Lamprey and featuring trombonist Brent Anderson and trumpet player Steve O’Connor, brought their own highly interactive brand of music education to the school’s fourth grade and their fifth grade instrumental students.

Lamprey demonstrated how brass instruments are played by blowing into a sea shell.

She likened the length of the tubing in a French horn to the length of a 12-foot garden hose, playing the Theme from Star Wars by blowing into the hose to the delight of the students.

O’Connor countered with a comparison of the trumpet’s four foot tubing versus the two foot tubing of the higher voiced piccolo trumpet.

The brass trio played tunes from Disney movies, standards like “Happy Birthday to You,” and took requests from the students who stomped along with the beat of the music.

Jeannie Sczublewski, music teacher a number of San Bernardino City USD facilities was enthusiastic about the programs educational benefits, saying, “I think it’s an awesome program because kids these days don’t usually get to watch programs like this.”

Cypress fourth grade teacher Terri Ustation agreed.

“Music really does affect a person,” she said, “the kids settled right down and were just enthralled with the musicians.”

The Symphony’s various trios have had a busy 2012, each visiting more than 15 schools a month.

“It’s an important part of what we do as Symphony musicians,” said Maldonado.

To further support the love of music, the Symphony Guild offers a ‘Music in the Schools’ program for third graders and the Symphony’s Student Scholarship Fund offers complimentary Symphony tickets to all students who participate in the Symphony’s education and outreach programs. The Symphony also offers a free children’s concert each spring. This years’ event was attended by more than 1,700 local students.

A string trio representing the San Bernardino Symphony Guild’s “Musicians in the Schools” program entertains students at Highland-Pacific Elementary School.

A brass trio from the San Bernardino Symphony Guild’s “Music in the Schools” program brought their unique educational musical stylings to Cypress Elementary School.