Music Arts begins new school year

by Nancy England for The Oak Ridger

What makes a music school a valuable asset to our community? It is people.

It's faculty members who are skillful and know their stuff, and know how to bring out the best in their students. Musicians who can be relied on to encourage students. Musicians who remember what it was like to be a beginner and can teach with good humor.

It's also students. Students who want to add a new dimension to their lives, and who are willing to do a little hard work to accomplish their goals. It's students who appear in recitals if only to please the folks who are paying for the lessons, and then come away from the recital with a mile-wide smile, proud of their accomplishments.

Students pitch in to help with the Scholarship Fund Drive mailing. Shown seated are Stephen Bernard and Jessie Pounds and standing, Tammy Chang and Stephanie Blanco.

And it's programs. In the case of Music Arts, this includes a broad range of services and opportunities, such as the Scholarship Fund, which allows talented schoolage children to study, no matter what their economic background.

There are presently about a dozen, whose family income is less than $15,000 per year, receiving 75-percent scholarships. The various levels of scholarship support range up to family incomes of $25,000 per year.

Music Arts' dedication shows in many other ways. The music school offers its students, without charge, a number of activities throughout the year.

A real favorite is the Music Theory Olympics, held this fall on Saturday morning, Oct. 23. Students of all ages work in teams and as individuals, participating in games designed to increase their awareness of the "nuts and bolts" of music.

Some of the more popular of the dozen-plus games played are "Music Jeopardy," "Triad Relay" and "Marching Scales." An on-site visit with the Oak Ridge Community Orchestra is a big hit with the youngsters.

Into every life a little rain must fall, and the annually unpopular "Dictator" game requires students to take musical dictation, since most instructors rarely find time for this during lessons, and since it's one of the best ways to learn to figure out rhythms and note patterns through careful listening.

This is just one of the innovative programs sponsored by the music school. Winter quarter brings the Composition Contest, which encourages students to express their creativity.

The entries are judged by a panel of Music Arts faculty members. Winner of the Symphonic Division has a chance to hear the piece rehearsed and perhaps performed by the Oak Ridge Community Orchestra.

The annual Performance Competition, in the spring quarter, gives the more advanced Music Arts students the opportunity to be heard by outstanding area musicians, such as Kirk Trevor, conductor of the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra, Sande MacMorran, conductor of the Knoxville Youth Symphony, and Norris Dryer, music director of radio station WUOT-FM, and learn from their comments. Winners in the Senior Division receive cash prizes.

This past summer, a group of young children (and some not so young!) were able to experience the wonder of being introduced to a new music instrument.

A few of the beginning violinists studying with Music Arts' intern teachers are, from top to bottom, Hannah Smith, Amy Schmid, Arianna Greenburg and Renee Maggart.

Music Arts' Summer Intern program, in its second year, offered private lessons for beginners at a "get acquainted rate" of about half the price of the going rate. Available this year were lessons in violin, cello, flute, piano and voice.

The Summer Intern program rests on a two-pronged idea: offering sampler lessons at a truly affordable price to beginners, and giving older students a place to learn teaching skills.

The aspect that makes the program unique is that a portion of each lesson is supervised by a professional faculty member, who's there to give advice and assistance to novice teachers.

There is also the Milton Carey Music Library, named after a former student who gave up violin lessons and donated his music to the school. Presently there are about 2,000 titles catalogued in piano music alone, with staff members and students working on cataloging and labeling orchestral and band instrumental music.

Music Arts students access the library in the company of one of the instructors. Although donations of piano music are welcomed at any time, the school would especially appreciate music for other instruments to keep the collection balanced.

Students and instructors agree that a major benefit of affiliating with Music Arts is the frequent recitals, often several per month. The popular events are generally limited to less than one hour each and feature an Intermission Quiz, an off-the-wall opportunity for students to win prizes for answering musical questions.

Music Arts Instructors

Music Arts instructors pause for a group photo. From left in front are Harold Nagge, guitar; Edward Pierce, piano; Bill Thiessen, tuba; and Marcay Dickens, French horn; second row, Warren Clark, trumpet; Stacy Taylor, violin; Karen Buckley; and Nancy England, cello; and, in back row, Jean Box, flute, Shannon Hamblen, country fiddle; Rudolph Nemeth, piano; and Joseph Tutton, guitar. Not pictured are Keith McClelland, bassoon; Phyllis Shepard, piano, recorder; Ilia Steinschneider, violin; Kimberly Simpkins, violin; and Lois White, flute.

Music Arts, a community music school with nearly 30 instructors, has been on the Oak Ridge scene since 1983. It's formed as a cooperative, and the instructors have a part in determining policies as well as how the budget is spent.

The instructors, of course, are the heart of the school. Although the music school has some basic policies, there's plenty of room for individuality among the faculty.

The piano faculty includes Mary Cox, Rudolph Nemeth, Edward Pierce and Phyllis Shepard, five excellent pianists with widely differing personalities and tastes in music.

Pierce is the "new kid on the block" who joins Music Arts this fall, after being invited into the faculty due to an unprecedented demand for piano lessons.

The string faculty, with violinists and violists Jacinta Howard, Kimberly Simpkins, Stacy Taylor, Ilia Steinschneider, country fiddle instructor Shannon Hamblen and myself (Nancy England), a cellist, is also under pressure to enlarge due to demand.

Simpkins, who is relatively new to the area, will be giving lessons starting this month. With Music Arts' present waiting list of between 15 and 20 violin students, Simpkins is sure to fill her schedule quickly.

We hope to add another cellist to the faculty this fall, since duties of running the many-faceted school keep me from accepting new students. Although I enjoy teaching, my main responsibility is to the other instructors and to each of their students.

Vocal instructors Lisa Griggs and Terrence McCracken can be counted on to give well-balanced instruction in the various aspects of singing, such as projection, pitch recognition, articulation, breath control and range enhancement.

The wind and brass faculty includes two flute instructors: Jean Box and Lois White. Box enjoys teaching all ages, and has quite a bit of experience with very young students who use a modified flute.

White has been on sabbatical for the past several years, serving as president of the national PTA organization. Students and faculty alike look forward to her return.

With degrees from the University of Tennessee and a rich background in classics as well as jazz, Tom Johnson does double duty as clarinet and saxophone instructor. Trumpet instructor Warren Clark joined the music school last year and has proven to be a valuable addition.

French horn instructor Marcay Dickens and tuba instructor Bill Thiessen are Oak Ridgers who have been active in the local music scene for many years. In addition to their main instruments, both teach baritone and trombone.

Guitar instructor Harold Nagge is a friendly, quiet and unassuming musician whose degrees are in jazz and jazz improvisation. He is joined by guitar instructor Joseph Tutton, an enthusiastic and outgoing man who prefers teaching classical guitar.

There are a number of instructors who are inactive at this time, with the biggest reason being their need to have a larger number of students to make the trip to Oak Ridge worthwhile. Notable among these are KSO members Lyn Davies, oboe, and bassoonist Keith McClelland, whose instruments are not as popular or well-known to schoolage children.

In keeping with the electronic age, Music Arts offers an interactive Web site, www.MusicArtsSchool.org, which profiles the instructors, posts events on the calendar, publishes photos of recitalists and articles by the instructors.

Starting with the fall quarter, the music school is offering electronic billing as an option, and hopes to add the convenience of electronic funds transfer as local banks make it available.

All Contents © Copyright The Oak Ridger