Kids Around the Bay

SFCV Music Educator Award

Who brought music into your life? Who fostered your musical talent, and changed your life? Do you know a teacher whose effort, dedication, and inventiveness deserve to be recognized?

This April, there will be a way to honor those great teachers. San Francisco Classical Voice announces its first annual Music Educator Award for teaching excellence. SFCV wants your favorite teacher to win this award!

We are accepting nominations NOW. Deadline is April 1. Finalists will be selected, and winners announced the week of April 3. Please submit the teacher's name, school, and an essay of at least 250 words on how the teacher inspired you, with examples of their excellence in and out of class. Mail your nomination to editor@sfcv.org with the subject heading: Music Teacher Award nomination.

“You don’t really learn music from books; you learn it from other musicians,” said SFCV editor Michael Zwiebach. “Teachers pass on traditions, and everyone who plays an instrument, or is passionate about music, can remember someone, somwhere along the line, who opened that door.”

“SFCV has been seeking a way to honor and celebrate great music teachers in the Bay Area for a long time,” said Executive Director Veronica Bashbush. “We realized after the announcement of the special Grammy Award for music teachers, that this was the perfect opportunity to start our own award and help facilitate local nominations for the Grammy at the same time.”

Prizes

SFCV will sponsor the winner’s nomination to the Grammy Foundation’s Music Educator Award (which offers cash prizes of $1,000 to $10,000). In addition, the winner will receive complimentary SFCV Education membership for his/her school’s music program. The winner and two runners-up will be featured in an SFCV article recognizing their remarkable impact on students’ lives.

Eligibility

The award is open to current U.S.-based music teachers from K through college, in public and private schools. Teachers in after-school, private studios, or other educational settings are not eligible. Anyone can nominate a teacher — students, parents, friends, colleagues, community members, school deans, and administrators — and teachers are also able to nominate themselves. Remember the deadline: April 1.

About the Grammy Foundation’s Music Educator Award:

At the 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards President/CEO Neil Portnow, Honorary Board Chair Ryan Seacrest, and multi-GRAMMY-winning artist Justin Timberlake announced the Foundation’s first-ever Music Educator Award to recognize teachers for their contributions to our musical landscape and their positive influence on their students’ musical experiences. The winner, who will be selected from 10 finalists, will receive $10,000 and the nine finalists $1,000 each.

Music in the Schools Series: San Domenico School

Each week the Kids Around the Bay column includes a profile of a local school music program, to provide parents with a sense of the resources and philosophy offered, as well as how programs compare. This week we spoke with Rob DeNunzio, Director of the Music Conservatory and Music Programs at San Domenico School in Marin.

San Domenico opened in 1850, founded by Mother Mary Goemaere, who traveled from Paris to Monterey, via Panama — and this was before the canal — to open the first independent school, and the first Catholic school, in California. The school, inspired by the Dominican spirit of “freedom and love in constant search for truth” eventually settled in the Sleepy Hollow neighborhood of San Anselmo in 1965.

The school includes grades pre-K through 12. The high school is all-girls, and has 160 students of which about 50 percent participate in some form of music education.

The school’s conservatory was born in 1977, from the brow of Faith France (see more), who felt there should be a private school alternative for students who could no longer find music programs in public school. From the beginning, her vision was to use string ensembles as the cornerstone for what has become known as the Virtuoso Program, a scholarship program that this year has 20 students. The heart of the program’s curriculum is chamber music.

Beyond the focus on string instruments, the school offers instruction and groupings for other instruments as well. Moreover, the middle school offers elective music classes and, as part of every school day, students are engaged in some kind of music setting, in a chorus, for example, or a group guitar or a string ensemble.

“We see generally two kinds of students,” DeNunzio told us, “those for whom music has been a lifelong arc — and actually the number of those students has gone down in the past few years — and another group who continue to study music and may be very passionate, but have a kind of dual identity and are drawn to the whole package of academic and music study.”

“I can’t think of another school, Crowden excepted, where there are so many opportunities to engage in the study and performing of music. From rock bands to ukulele groups to vocal ensembles, from string to percussion, we cater to a great variety of interests and talents. And we can do that because we have 25 music teachers on our staff. Some teach five days a week; some, one day a week. Many lead ensembles as well as teach. Together they provide an extraordinary resource of knowledge and leadership. Essentially, the school provides the space and administrative support for what is a true conservatory. ”

There is an audition process for prospective high school students, in which applicants meet with DeNunzio, play scales, sight read, and then come to an orchestra rehearsal. “We look to see how a student might approach unfamiliar music, and how they fit into a group. We’re looking at chemistry. We’ve found that one reason our orchestra has been so successful is that time spent in small groups has a great effect on the orchestra as a whole.”

Auditions for classes starting in the fall of 2013 have passed; however, latecomers should contact DeNunzio, who can make special arrangements. Not every student gets through the audition process but “we always give her an idea of where they are and we can help them get to where they need to be. We often know their music teachers and we have students who are working to get into the program. I can only say, the doors are not closed.”

In the past few years students in the Virtuoso program have gone on to The New England Conservatory, Oberlin, Harvard, Princeton, UC Berkeley, and Stanford. “It’s become increasingly clear,” says DeNunzio, who has a degree in composition from the University of Oregon, “that colleges and universities are attracted to students that have taken music seriously, because kids driven to pursue music at this level, who have shown the drive and focus you need to flourish, tend to do very well throughout their academic careers.”

“We have kids doing music in pre-K and even at that point we have those kids up on stage. I always tell parents that whether or not their child studies music in great depth, the basic foundation of learning to play an instrument, along with the effects of practice and overcoming the fear of being on a stage, for example, all those experiences and the confidence they engender, stay with you all your life. And of course we’re looking at kids who may or may not be fully engaged with music now, but they recognize that music is important and they will probably support opera and symphonies later on.”

As for tuition, grade 9 this year cost $34,700; boarding is around $51,000. Of the 20 students in the Virtuoso program, most are boarders, if only because their academic and instrument practice schedules are so tight.

About Town

February 28 to March 9, Dan Kryston Memorial Theater: Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts presents 42nd Street. A Depression-era novel was made into a 1933 film, perhaps best known for the song, “We’re in the Money.” Finally got to Broadway in 1980, under the ailing hand of Gower Champion. It’s the two-act story of the making of a Broadway musical. Love and intrigue off stage. You think of all the spinoffs of this story, from A Chorus Line to The Producers. It’s a little of each. Well worth seeing on its own; and if any young cast can do it right, this one can. (Thursday, Friday and Saturdays only. 7:30 p.m. Matinees on Saturdays only, at 2 p.m.). Tickets from $15.

March 3 Sunday, through the next Sunday, March 10, Asian Art Museum, across from City Hall on Larkin Street: San Francisco Unified School District Arts Festival. Last call for this remarkable festival, which is focused on visual, literary, media, and performing arts. Fifty artistic groups from San Francisco public schools will attend. About half are devoted to music. Admission is free. Here are some highlights:

March 3, 11 a.m. - 2 p.m.: Performances by the S.F. Boys Chorus, The Hamlin School Girls Chorus, and Presidio Middle School Jazz Band. (A special exhibit surcharge of $10 for visitors over 18 applies. Don’t forget to book your visit time for the Terracotta Warriors on asianart.org.) From 2-4 p.m. at the Main Branch of San Francisco Public Library, next door to the museum: Students read their poetry and other literary works.

March 5, 10-11:30 a.m.: Film Makers Day - Films and Q&A with student filmmakers, grades 1-12.

March 7, 2013, 5-8 p.m.: Award Ceremony and Community Celebration with a public reception. Dreamcatcher awards are given to outstanding educators and community education partners. Performances will be given by the Ruth Asawa School of the Arts Orchestra and Chorus and ensembles from A.P. Giannini and Presidio Middle Schools.

There is a full schedule of events on the SFUSD Arts Festival website.

March 3, Sunday, 3 p.m., San Domenico School in San Anselmo: Orchestra da Camera presents its annual scholarship benefit concert. This year: “Women in Music.” Program includes Fanny Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in Eb, along with music by Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Grazyna Bacewicz, and Nancy Bloomer Deussen. Not to mention a piece composed by Jo Griffin, a student in the Virtuoso program. The Quartet Rouge, whose debut album Muses is now on iTunes, will also perform. Tickets are $25 and fully tax-deductible. Purchase through the Conservatory office at (415) 258-1921.

March 9, Saturday, 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., Seventh Avenue Presbyterian Church in San Francisco: San Francisco Renaissance Voices hosts Judith Kennedy who will offer a day-long, workshop-styled introduction to Renaissance Dance. Kennedy was a choreographer with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for 25 years and teaches courses at such places as the Consort de Danse Baroque in Cardiff, Wales. Tickets: online: $45/half-day, $85/full day (at the door: $55 half-day, $100/full-day). More information: www.sfrv.org.

March 16 same time and place: a similar workshop program, in Baroque dance, offered by Philippa Waite. For both novice and experienced dancers. Waite is currently guest teacher of Period Movement and Dance at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, Cardiff, and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She is Artistic Director of Consort de Danse Baroque. This workshop will include instruction in basic dance steps and arm motions in the main Baroque dance rhythms: bourée and minuet in the morning session and sarabande and gigue in the afternoon.

Experienced students will learn more complex steps required for ballroom and theatre dances. Emphasis is on style, technique, and the performance of the dances, not on the ability to memorize the steps. Tickets may be purchased online: $45/half-day, $85/full day (at the door: $55 half-day, $100/full-day). More information: www.sfrv.org

Composer of the Week: Giaochino Rossini

Each week we celebrate the birthday of one composer from the SFCV composer gallery. This week’s birthday boy is Gioachino Rossini (born Feb. 29, 1792), whose career ushered in the “Golden Century” of Italian opera. The Barber of Seville is, of course, one of the best first-opera experiences for young children. But there’s much more to him than the playful, tuneful comic operas that get all the attention.

On our Rossini page you can find out about the composer’s life, discover fun facts about him (like the fact that he loved food and has a dozen or more recipes named after him), listen to a playlist, watch videos, find resources for further research, and much more. Great for school projects or just playing around. Check out all about Rossini here.