[Magdalen] A concert series for children

[James Oppenheimer-Crawford]

I belong to the Adirondack Baroque Consort, which is the oldest
continuously operating early music group in the USA.  We give concerts for
which we ask for payment. The money goes for music and supports scholarship
funds.

Recently a music teacher in an elementary school in Utica (NY) requested a
grant to purchase recorders for her students. The school had cut funding
for the recorders. We decided to give her a grant which paid for the
recorders for her kids.
I suggested that we ought to go to the school and play for the kids so they
could get a real taste of what one could do with that recorder they have
been given.
We settled upon this past Monday as the day.
We came to the school at about eight o'clock, and we played for all of the
teacher's classes. Classes are a half-hour long, so we played a small
repertoire again and again -- and again...  By the time we were done, at
about three o'clock, we had lost track of how many concerts we did. "Nine,"
said the teacher.  Goodness! No wonder we were exhausted!

Seeing how this lady handled the seemingly endless parade of kids was a
reminder of how much work it is to teach!  I was in awe of her patience and
wisdom.

Hopefully we made impressions on some of the kids that will last.  Our
director said his first memory of the recorder was hearing one played when
he was in the fifth grade, and it changed his life.  We all felt we had
done a good thing, and perhaps made a difference.

March is Play-the-recorder month.  Every recorder ensemble is asked to try
to do something during March, to create some sort of groundswell, I
suppose.  In the past, we have sometimes not done very much. This year, I
think we did something!



James W. Oppenheimer-Crawford
*“A life is like a garden. Perfect moments can be had, but not preserved,
except in memory. LLAP**”  -- *Leonard Nimoy