10th Anniversary in Boston

10th Anniversary Celebration

New England Conservatory, Boston, Massachusetts

Mary A. Epstein and Jonathan C. Rappaport, Directors

Everyone a musician

On July 15, 2008 Mary Epstein welcomed the Jordan Hall audience to the 10th anniversary celebration of the Kodály Music Institute.” Among the distinguished guests were New England Conservatory Administrators Sam Adams, Jos van der Linde, and Margaret Ulmer; Directors Emeriti of the Kodály Center of America - Faith Knowles and Denise Bacon; New England Conservatory faculty Ran Blake (MacArthur Fellow, double Guggenheim Fellow, composer, pianist and friend), Kodály Music Institute Alumni June Ambush, Janice Waterman, Leslie Dooley; Boston University professor Dr. Sandra Nicolucci; Boston Symphony Orchestra Education Director Myran Parker Brass; family, friends, colleagues, and participants of the Kodály Music Institute and Vocal Vacation programs. The 10th Anniversary Celebration was dedicated to American folk singer and social activist Pete Seeger. Joanne Crowell (Vocal Vacation Director) read the Proclamation that Seeger is artist, teacher, and scholar. Seeger received his award in abstentia with his signature banjo drawing which states “Music may save the world!”

Joanne Crowell reading the Proclamation to Pete Seeger at New England Conservatory.

On behalf of the faculty of the Kodály Music Institute, Margaret Callaghan, and Brian Michaud presented Epstein and Rappaport with a monsoon stick encased in mahogany and inscribed “Singing Voices Without Number.” MIT lecturer and KMI faculty member Pamela Wood made the oral presentation to Epstein and Rappaport. “Under your leadership, Ms. Wood spoke, the “many” have inspired many others to excel as human beings, for as Kodály taught us, good collective singing produces individuals of noble character.”…. Under your leadership, many have been inspired to EXCEL in the field of music education. Hear the voice of a music educator under your leadership. “Mary took me by the hand and led me to higher and higher levels of competency in my teaching. She has helped me to grow into the highest level of Teacher/Scholar/Artist I can be.” Hear the voice of a music educator under your leadership: “How many people have I made hold hands together and sing and dance in a ring since studying with Jon in 1983-84? Perhaps 450 kids per year for the last 25 years?” (You can do the math.). A third music educator voiced, “My teaching changed after my first summer at KMI. I was amazed at how much my students enjoyed the new approach to learning and I never looked back!”

L to R: Brian Michaud, Margie Callaghan, Mary Epstein, Jonathan Rappaport, Pamela Wood (and the monsoon sticks).

Gilbert De Greeve delivered the keynote address. “Please, Ladies and Gentlemen, Google search Kodály!” De Greeve, beseeched. Nearly two million Internet entries provide proof that Zoltán Kodály is very well known throughout the world. But, De Greeve questioned, “ what's in a name? Nothing!“ The 'real' issue is the impact of a person….. “I am quite sure that Kodály would not have been very impressed with the internet’s search results. Upon receiving an Honorary Doctorate at the University of Toronto, Canada in 1966, Kodály said: Mr. Chancellor, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen: I wish to express my deep gratitude for this high distinction and to say that I feel myself attached to this venerable institution. I have heard from the meeting that I deserved it. But I suppose that this venerable university would express by this decision the opinion that "in magnis et viloluisse sat est," and has honored rather my striving than my results. How right he was. The ‘striving’ is the most important. If that striving is consequent and based on knowledge and integrity, the ‘results’ will follow. Zoltán Kodály was a ‘doer,’ a man who not only ‘identified’ the problems, but found solutions and realized them.

De Greeve continued saying that we can never show enough gratitude to the people who are giving the best of their professional knowledge and expertise to realize Kodály’s dream that music should belong to everyone. On the occasion of their 10th anniversary, on behalf of the Board of the International Kodály Society and in my personal name, I wholeheartedly congratulate Mary Epstein and Jonathan Rappaport and with them all who contribute to the Kodály Music Institute at New England Conservatory.

Gilbert De Greeve then sat down to the Jordan Hall German Steinway piano, and joined by oboist Charlyn Bethell performed Romances Op. 94 (1849) by Robert Schumann. Bethell and De Greeve selected to perform a composition by Schumann because of Zoltán Kodály’s legendary respect for the composer and oft quoted Rules and Maxims for Young Musicians by Schumann. De Greeve, a Peabody Conservatory graduate, performs extensively throughout the world and is President of the International Kodály Society. Charlyn Bethell, faculty of the Kodály Music Institute where she teaches pedagogy, materials and chamber music is also Chair of the Music Department for the Concord MA Public Schools. Ms Bethell enjoys an active artistic life with various orchestras and chamber music groups and has given a Carnegie Hall recital as well as recorded for CRI.

Gilbert De Greeve, piano and Charlyn Bethell, oboe performing in Jordan Hall.

Sixteen first grade children from the Peabody Elementary School, Cambridge MA provided a demonstration class which was taught by their music teacher and our KMI faculty Wendy Silverberg. (See below Photo 5). The Peabody Elementary School music program in grades kindergarten through two is an American model whose principles are based on the Hungarian Music Primary School model. This school, 50% of whom receive free and reduced lunch, provides increased frequency of music instruction in which Ms. Silverberg’s (K-2) music classrooms have 4 classes per week for a total of 2 hours per week. The whole school (K-8) is in year five of a six-year music research project to examine music’s impact on student achievement. The entire research team was present and addressed the audience after the demonstration lesson. Dr. Martin Gardiner, Brown University researcher presented the statistical proof of improved results in statewide high-stakes testing. School principal Joellen Scanell detailed the school’s math and reading plan and their university affiliations, which include Lesley University, Harvard University, and the Kodály Music Institute at New England Conservatory. Mary Epstein, who has served as Ms. Silverberg’s mentor for these five years and taken her to Hungary twice to see the Hungarian music education system, moderated the panel discussion. Jonathan Rappaport provided the audience with a glimpse of the cognitive process children must acquire to attend to and build musical literacy skills. This team has concrete data showing the positive impact increased music instruction has on student achievement when teaching is systematic not only in reading and math but in music. Note: Nearly 50 years ago Hungarian researchers discovered similar results of children in the Hungarian Music Primary Schools although their testing was for grades 5-8. (Friss Gábor: “The Effect of Musical Training on General Intellectual Development,” Musical Education in Hungary edited by Frigyes Sándor. Corvina Budapest: 1966. p. 145. ).

Wendy Silverberg teaches Peabody Elementary School demonstration class on Jordan Hall stage.

The Heath Sisters rounded out the anniversary program. Sarah Heath, Peggy Heath Ogilvy and Lucy Heath McLellan performed and led singing of their family favorites. An audience of adults, teens, tweens, and outside guests favored “The Skunk Song,” a round in which the meter alternated by measure between 5/4 and 4/4 and was composed in 1962 by their parents Fenno and Carol Heath after a skunk sprayed the cat, who had to be washed in 5 big cans of tomato juice on the Thanksgiving snow. The Heath Sisters are have sung as a natural trio since childhood. Their mother Carol authored The Song Garden and Meet Me at the Garden Gate. Carol Heath and Jan Forman were the parent activists who established the New Haven Kodály Project when they invited the Kodály Fellows to teach in their public schools. Both Carol and Jan became 25-year Kodály Music Educator/Specialists and during mid-1970’s Carol trained in Kecskemét, Hungary at the Kodály Pedagogy Institute. Their father Fenno Heath is director emeritus of the Yale University Glee Club, New Haven Connecticut USA. The Heath Sisters have released four CDs.

The Heath Sisters

Anniversary festivities continued into the evening with dinner at Symphony Sushi. KMI faculty provided live entertainment performing “Toy Symphony” by Leopold Mozart on kazoos, recorders, toy piano, and ratchet (vigorously played by Denise Bacon). This brought the 10th Anniversary Celebrations of the Kodály Music Institute at New England Conservatory to a joyful close!