Roseland elementary schoolers play violin with a master (w/video)

After school let out at Sheppard Accelerated Elementary School in southwest Santa Rosa on Tuesday afternoon, the sound of 41 violins playing “Ode to Joy” echoed down the empty halls.

Forty of those violins were played by second- and third-graders participating in a program of the Santa Rosa Symphony, called Simply Strings, which kicked off last fall at Sheppard. It teaches elementary school students from disadvantaged backgrounds to play the instrument through hands-on instruction two hours a day, five days a week, for five years.

The 41st violin belonged to world-class musician Lindsay Deutsch, who stood among the students and paused occasionally from playing to correct a child’s grip on a bow.

Deutsch was in town for a five-day residency with the Santa Rosa Symphony’s youth ensembles, which include an orchestra and chamber orchestra. She chose Santa Rosa for her first in a series of residencies with young musicians because the organization she heads, the Classics Alive Foundation, named Santa Rosa’s orchestra Youth Orchestra of the Year.

Her foundation focuses on inspiring a love of classical music in a new generation.

“I love playing for kids,” she said. “Classical music is in a bit of an emergency right now. We have to make an effort to connect to another generation.”

Her visit will culminate when she performs as a soloist at a Saturday afternoon youth concert at Weill Hall at Sonoma State University’s Green Music Center. In the days leading up to that performance, she rehearsed with the youth orchestra musicians and met with the students at Sheppard.

Deutsch kicked off her two-hour session there by playing a song for them on her 170-year-old violin. The 29-year-old Los Angeles resident, dressed in jeans, heels and a black button-up shirt, began with a flourish called a sforzando tremolo that prompted an involuntary, “What?” from one boy seated cross-legged on the ground. Another breathed, “Ohh.”

Afterward, she asked the kids, “Did you recognize that tune?”

“Yankee Doodle!” a couple children replied.

“Yes! I played it well enough to be recognized,” Deutsch said with a laugh.

She went on to tell them how she got interested in playing the violin: When she was 2, she watched famed violinist Itzhak Perlman perform with characters like Bert and Ernie on Sesame Street. She was hooked. She began playing violin when she was 4, practicing on a proxy instrument made from a tissue box and rubber-bands until then.

After listening to Deutsch, the students performed for her. The second-graders had been playing their instruments just three weeks after graduating from paper versions of the instruments, but nevertheless they lifted their bows and gamely performed some basic rhythms they’d learned, including one called “Pepperoni Pizza,” under the guidance of their teacher, Alex Volonts. Volonts plays viola with the Santa Rosa Symphony. Then, the more experienced third-graders joined in and they played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with Deutsch, filling the small classroom with the sound.

“Beautiful,” Deutsch said at the end.

Yuritizi Guerrero, 8, said she became interested in playing the violin after her class went to listen to the Santa Rosa Symphony last year.

“I heard many people play and I liked the sound,” she said.

Nobody else in her family plays the instrument, she said. She added that learning to play has been hard, but also nice.

She and 19 other second-graders were chosen as part of the second class of Simply Strings this fall. Families are asked to commit to being involved for five years when they join the program, said Ben Taylor, education director for the Santa Rosa Symphony. Each year, they plan to add another class of 20 second-graders until they have 100 participants.

If students complete the program, they will be offered tuition-free membership in one of the symphony’s youth ensembles, Taylor said. Those ensembles are a training program for the adult orchestra.

“We really want them to benefit from the program and we want our program to benefit by bringing another part of the community into the fold,” he said.

Simply Strings is part of a musical movement called El Sistema that began in Venezuela and is now spreading around the United States. It teaches classical music to disadvantaged children as a way to improve their academics and provide more social opportunities.

Christina Penrose, community engagement manager for the symphony, studied the movement in graduate school and helped bring the program, funded by grants and donations, to Santa Rosa. The next closest program is at El Verano Elementary in Sonoma, Taylor said.

His organization chose Sheppard Elementary because it had strong community involvement while also having many socially or economically disadvantaged kids, he said.

“We wanted to start at a place where we felt the program had a good opportunity for success and impact,” he said. To gauge the success of the program, the symphony is tracking students’ progress through family interviews and report card evaluations and comparing the results with those of students who are not participating in Simply Strings.

“We view this really as a social program,” Taylor said. “Learning violin is not the goal, it’s the method. We are dedicated to students becoming outstanding young citizens and contributing to community,” he said.

Staff Writer Jamie Hansen blogs about education at extracredit.blogs.pressdemocrat.com. You can reach her at 521-5205 or jamie.hansen@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jamiehansen.