SAD 9 music students in new master classes
PSO members are helping young musicians with their craft.
By Samantha C. DePoy
Staff Writer

FARMINGTON – Hannah Sloane-Barton dropped her chin on the glossy brown wood of her violin, her auburn ringlets over her face, hiding her eyes from view.

She stood serenely for a moment, then gracefully raised her bow and brought it down toward the instrument.

Immediately, the room erupted in the sweet sound of Vivaldi’s “Concerto in G minor” as Sloane-Barton, a Mount Blue Middle School Orchestra violinist, powered her shoulders forward and back furiously, the resined bow dancing across the taut strings.

As her 30 fellow student-violinists looked on, so did Wenyi Shih and Nicola Takov, two members of the Portland Symphony Orchestra’s string section.

After the final note resonated through the air, Takov smiled at Sloane-Barton. “Excellent. Very good. Very good. Excellent,” he said in a calm voice, heavy with a thick Bulgarian accent. “You really do have a very beautiful sound. Be proud of it. I think it’s really nice.”

He then proceeded to explain to Sloane-Barton ways he could improve her playing: lifting her elbow higher when she plays the G-string, using a chin rest and holding the bow differently.

The master instruction was part of master classes, taught by Portland Symphony members to the Middle School Orchestra’s string section and show choir members on Monday.

Shih and Takov worked with violinists, cellists with Jim Kennedy, bassists with Lynn Hannings, violists with Julie Thompson and vocalists with Laura Harris.

By the end of the year, all musicians in the SAD 9 Middle School’s orchestra will have received some special attention.

It’s the first year the symphony has tried master classes and SAD 9 is one of the pilot programs for the program, which is paid for in part by a $5,200 grant from MBNA, said Carol Shumway, a SAD 9 music teacher and site coordinator for the grant. It’s also the second year that MBNA has helped bring the Portland Symphony to SAD 9.

Last year, the company gave a smaller sum of money to sponsor a series of “Kinderkonzerts,” designed for K-2 grades throughout the district. The highly interactive concerts give kids a chance to hear live music, said PSO Education Coordinator Gail Witherill, and to learn the sounds of different instruments.

“It may spark some interest,” Witherill said of the mini concerts. “You never know. You can really see the kids just light up when they hear the live music.”

What the grant didn’t cover was footed by the district, local Parent Teacher Associations and area music boosters.

This year, Shumway worked with Witherill to expand the orchestra’s connection with SAD 9 students by offering the master classes. When Shumway applied for the grant, she was skeptical the district would receive it because it was for so much money.

In the end, grant reviewers awarded money to SAD 9 because the program would touch so many students.

But no price can be put on the opportunity for students in a rural district to work with professional musicians, said Shumway.

“As an elementary music teacher, we listen to recordings and watch videos but to actually have live performances for your students – that’s the magic,” she said.

“We need children to hear this caliber of music live. It’s a way for them to connect the source with the sound. It makes it real to them.”

The PSO will return for Kinderkonzerts and master classes in March and in April. Community members are invited to attend.

sdepoy@sunjournal.com

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