Fundraiser aims to bring music to schools
Updated Thu. Sep. 9 2004 7:19 AM ET
TORONTO — After learning that Sean Jones’s middle school didn’t have an adequate music program, his father compelled the young boy to join a marching band at a local community centre.
Years after playing his trumpet in that band, Sean Jones is better known as Smooth, the alto in Toronto-based In Essence, a Juno-winning R&B quintet. “That’s what kept me going,” he said at the launch of a music education fundraising campaign to bring awareness to what advocates call eroding school programs.
“We’re trying to convince this country’s highest officials and maybe even the greater population of the importance and seriousness of (music education cutbacks).”
Part of Vinyl, a posh music and fashion exhibit at Holt Renfrew’s nine stores across Canada, the charitable event hopes to raise upwards of $50,000 so schools can replace shabby instruments or hire music teachers.
“They had a small music class in my senior public school but it wasn’t intensive. There was no direction,” added Jones following the official event, which took place at Holt’s stylized cafe.
Hoping to inspire the wealthy to empty their pockets, the store will host a silent auction at a swanky invite-only party in Toronto next Tuesday, tied in with the city’s star-studded film festival.
Up for grabs are one-of-a-kind clothing items by notable designers like Stella McCartney, Juicy, DSquared2, DKNY, Lida Baday, Nicole Miller and Diane von Furstenberg, among others. Bids are also being taken for a Duchamp tie autographed by Elvis Costello, a trip to a Giorgio Armani fashion show in Milan, and a Fender guitar autographed by Martin Scorsese.
As well, the retailer, known for carrying high-end designer garb, will donate two per cent of national sales on Oct. 2 to two organizations, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the Coalition for Music Education in Canada.
With school starting, Melanie Berry, president of the recording academy, says the fortunate students will be hemming and hawing over which instrument to play in music class.
But hordes of others don’t have that option because their schools had to cut music programs to save money.
Berry says her organization, the one behind the annual Juno Awards, hears from dozens of schools every year who are using decaying instruments, don’t have sheet music or trained teachers.
“The stories would make you cry,” she said. “Some use ice cream buckets for drums and duct-taped trombones. There’s instruments that are 25 years old where 200 students are sharing reeds. It’s quite shocking when you start to get involved and hear more about it,” she said.
Both organizations hope the trendy Vinyl campaign, which runs through Oct. 2, will help raise awareness that music makes kids smarter. Each believes that developing a student’s creativity is just as important as math and reading skills.
“It may sound shmaltzy but I truly believe that making music makes us a better citizen,” said Ingrid Whyte, from the coalition, a citizens’ group based in Agincourt, Ont.
“Frankly, in a lot of schools, music isn’t being taught at all. Leading corporations around the world value creativity and innovation more than anything and music is a contributor to that. It’s an act of intelligence not just a contributor to intelligence.”
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