Mooseheart band shines with its new instruments
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Mario Esquillin and Akeem Edmond played a duet during a solo slot during Mooseheart's band concert. Photos Courtesy of Mooseheart |
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In addition to full-band arrangements, the Mooseheart Christmas concert gave some students a chance to showcase their talents in small group settings. Here, Kenny Castillo performs a solo. Courtesy of Mooseheart |
There was an extra bit of sparkle to Mooseheart's band this year as it performed its annual Christmas concert. That glint came off the instruments themselves.
In an ongoing project to put new instruments into every band member's hands, 35 instrumentalists held new brass or woodwind instruments in the Dec. 16 concert at the campus' House of God.
Those instruments came courtesy of two major grants — one a $27,000 grant by the Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, and the other a $20,000 grant by the Kane County Riverboat Foundation.
“I had a lot of students start playing as ‘older beginners' on a good horn, and not have to share that instrument. Those students really take off quicker on those new instruments,” said Mooseheart band director Steve Schmidt.
The greatest beneficiaries of those instruments are Mooseheart's youngest band members. Schmidt said that when initially learning to play, a properly functioning instrument can make a massive difference in the sound quality made by the player. Most Mooseheart students come to the campus without any prior musical training or experience.
Students can join Mooseheart's band in fifth grade, though Schmidt will sometimes take a fourth-grader who he feels can handle the work. Here, too, the new instruments purchased with grant money have been integral.
“If the child is given a woodwind instrument and the pads are not sitting correctly, it's nearly impossible to get the correct sound,” Schmidt said. “I had a student this year who literally had a screw loose — on a good horn. The student came to me, after trying for three weeks and not being able to make a sound. She thought it was something she was doing wrong and it was something as simple as that.”
And the band sounded like its usual spectacular self in this year's concert, mixing traditional Christmas music with a medley of songs from the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie franchise, as well as a medley of songs from the motion picture “Titanic.”
“I thought this was one of our best Christmas concerts,” said Schmidt, who has taught instrumental music at Mooseheart since his arrival in 1988. “I think we have 25 kids out of 58 who are first-year players. That's a huge amount of younger players, and to consider how well we played, I think that's a testament to how hard they've worked.”
Mooseheart's choir, under the direction of Kristin Shuman, has more than doubled in size and sang a series of Christmas-oriented songs. Taken together with the band and a 14-member introductory band that performed, nearly 80 students performed in the concert — more than half the school population. Mooseheart began the 2010-2011 school year with 150 students in fifth through 12th grades.
“That is a huge percentage of our population that is involved in music,” Schmidt said. “In a larger high school, if you had 10 percent of the population involved in the music program, you'd consider that to be a great thing.”
In addition to the support of the foundations that helped supply new instruments for the band, Schmidt took time to single out the Women of the Moose for their continued and unwavering support of the music program.
“It goes from the top from Grand Chancellor Barb McPherson all the way down to all the women who hold bake sales and do things in their Moose Lodges and raise money at the local level,” Schmidt said. “It is a unique situation, and every person across the continent who contributes makes such a huge difference.”
Founded in 1913, Mooseheart is supported completely through private donations, the great majority of which come from the 1.1 million men and women of the Moose fraternal organization in more than 1,700 lodges and 1,600 chapters throughout the U.S., Canada, Great Britain and Bermuda. Moose International headquarters is located on the Mooseheart campus.
Since its founding, Mooseheart has operated a complete, accredited kindergarten through high school academic program, plus art, music, vocational training and interscholastic sports. It is an extremely nurturing and student-tailored program, with an average student-teacher ratio of 12 to 1.
Mooseheart is currently home to roughly 230 students, ranging in age from preschoolers to high school seniors. Applications for admission to Mooseheart are considered from any family whose children are, for whatever reason, lacking a stable home environment.
