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Making a Difference in the World through MusicAfter graduating in spring 2001, cellist Sara Stalnaker packed her car and headed east from her birthplace of Portland, Oregon, not quite sure where she was going or what she would do when she arrived. She’d just graduated from the Shepherd School of Music, and she wondered where her career in music might take her. The pondering took a pause when she reached Connecticut and got in touch with an old Rice friend, Heath Marlow, another cellist who’d graduated two years earlier. Heath invited her to visit him in Providence, Rhode Island, where he’d been teaching cello to children from impoverished inner-city neighborhoods as part of a group called Community MusicWorks (CMW). In a twist of good fortune for Stalnaker, Marlow was leaving CMW for a job on the West Coast, and he suggested she would be a good fit to fill his position with the organization. “I couldn’t have imagined the depth and intensity of this program until the day I traveled to the neighborhood for my interview,” Stalnaker says. “The cracked cement and treeless streets, the kids’ incredible energy and charm, the violin cases they carried around like secret treasure chests, the quiet inspiration of founder and director Sebastian Ruth—I was beyond captivated.”
Stalnaker got the job, and now, five years later, she plays cello in Community MusicWorks’s resident quartet—the Providence String Quartet—and teaches and mentors cello students from the neighborhood. She also runs the musical workshop series and teen group and facilitates the family concert outings. Marlow’s association with the project goes back even before its inception. He first met CMW founder Sebastian Ruth, then a student at Brown University, when they participated in an idealistic orchestra in the New York area. After Marlow graduated from Rice, Ruth invited him to visit Providence. Ruth wanted to talk to Marlow about an urban string quartet residency he was in the process of developing after winning a public service fellowship from the Howard R. Swearer Center for Public Service at Brown. Ruth, who serves as CMW’s executive artistic director and violinist with the Providence String Quartet, started the project out of a desire to perform chamber music professionally while simultaneously having significant involvement in social change. “Situating a quartet in the heart of a community,” he says, “was an experiment to see how musicians could incorporate themselves meaningfully into the daily lives of children and their families.” After only one visit, Marlow was hooked. “Starting in September 1999,” he says, “I drove down to Providence from Boston one day a week to serve as CMW’s first cello teacher and resident musician for two seasons, and I’ve continued my association with CMW ever since.” Despite the fact that Marlow had gone to work in Oakland, California, in 2001, his interest in CMW refused to wane. He began telecommuting in a development role and, after four years, returned to the organization as director of development and artistic program administrator. As the organization grows, Marlow finds himself more and more in an indirect service role. “We now have a team of volunteer musical mentors,” he explains, “who fill in as practice coaches or substitute teachers.” Even so, he still makes time to teach and perform. “I coached a string quartet of teens last season and performed Schubert’s Quintet in C Major with the Providence String Quartet. Next spring, I’ll join them again for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s tuneful string sextet, Souvenir de Florence.” Chloë Kline ’98, who plays the viola, is another Shepherd School alum involved in CMW. She joined the organization this fall as a fellow, and she’ll teach violin and viola and perform with CMW musicians. “I have been peripherally involved as an observer and friend of CMW for several years,” says Kline, who wrote several research papers on CMW for a master’s degree in arts in education at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education. During her research, Kline talked in-depth with a number of students about their experiences with CMW and how these experiences fit into their broader support networks. Now, she hopes to experience firsthand the work at CMW and to understand what parts of the group’s model might provide useful lessons for other community-based music education programs. Ruth deeply appreciates the efforts and expertise the Shepherd School alums bring to CMW. “Both Heath and Sara are not only phenomenal cellists but also keenly interested in pursuing meaningful careers outside the mainstream,” he says. “I really respect their willingness to take a risk and apply their talents to this experimental project. It has helped them fulfill their ambitions to make a difference in the world through music.” Stalnaker, Ruth says, is a true mentor to her students, constantly keeping track of the events and constraints in their lives. “One great example of her thorough approach,” he relates, “was when, last year, she identified that the obstacle to one of her students’ practicing was the chaos of his home life—there wasn’t a quiet place in the house to practice his cello. Sara bought him a rug, chair, lamp, and music stand and set up a practice corner in the family’s basement. It was such a success that his four siblings, who also are in the program, practice there, too.” Marlow’s efforts have been more systemic. “He makes important connections with musicians all over the country and established our Artistic Advisory Council, which is composed of musicians who support CMW’s growth,” Ruth says. “He’s set up concerts for chamber music groups to visit Providence and perform with our quartet, and his connections from Rice and music festivals no doubt contribute to his being able to do this.” Bringing classical music to children from impoverished inner-city neighborhoods isn’t always easy. Stalnaker says her involvement with the kids varies from student to student, though she is closest to the girls. “Some of the girls and I text message often, go out for hot chocolate, and have sleepovers at my lake house. I build most of my relationships with the boys through friendships with their mothers. I find this is the best way to support them.” Marlow cites Fischer as an influence, too, as well Brian Connelly, an artist teacher of piano and piano chamber music and accompanying, both of whom gave him a sophisticated appreciation of chamber music. He also says that Larry Rachleff, the Walter Kris Hubert Professor of Orchestral Conducting, provided “great orchestral training.” “One of the unique characteristics of the Shepherd School is its prioritization on community,” Fischer says. “We work hard at creating a supportive, noncompetitive environment for learning that builds strong working relationships between students, faculty, and staff. A program like CMW is a natural outgrowth of those kinds of relationships. In addition, we strongly encourage our students to take the initiative to create a life for themselves that reflects their own values.” Fischer isn’t surprised that the three Shepherd School alums are involved in CMW. “I first heard Heath when he was 15 years old at a master class I gave at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge,” he recalls. “His talent and intelligence were immediately evident and continued to impress me as he went through his curriculum at Rice. The entrepreneurial spirit really resonated with him. “Sara is a very creative performer and one who has great vulnerability as an artist. Her recitals at the Shepherd School were very memorable. She has both a softness and a great determination that are a marvelous combination in a musician. I feel she has found an ideal outlet for her particular gifts as a player and teacher with Community MusicWorks. “Chloe is a quiet, deep-thinking artist who draws you into her realm when she plays. I’ve always enjoyed working with her and listening to her personal voice when she performs.” The benefits CMW brings to the students, the community it serves, and the staff members themselves are compelling. “Caring, positive relationships support general well-being, and well-being is the font from which imagination, motivation, and leadership spring,” Stalnaker says. “These qualities are what makes our community as strong as it is today.” Kline also thinks that one of the most impressive aspects of the program is its focus on building community through music. “These students are not just learning basic skills on their instruments,” she says. “They are learning ways in which these skills can broaden their perceptions of what is possible as individuals and as members of a wider community.” Plans for a formal assessment of the program are under way, Marlow says, but anecdotal evidence, including accolades such as the award from the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, attests to the benefits of CMS’s presence in Providence. In addition, Chamber Music America, the industry’s service organization, recently awarded the organization a three-year grant to help it deepen its impact on the community. Stalnaker says there isn’t a single experience that best illustrates the benefits of the program. Instead, it’s the ongoing experience. “Watching my students perform,” she says, “and seeing not just the focus and determination on their faces but their ensuing relief and pride at the applause—that’s about as good as it gets.” Some of her favorite recollections are dropping a fairly new student off after a workshop only to have the student ask, “Do you want to hang out tomorrow?”; being tutored on the current top-40 radio hits during a trip out of town for a hike; and talking with teens about violence in their schools. “I’ve seen some amazing things in recent years,” Marlow agrees. One was a “Youth Salon” the teens initiated as a benefit for Hurricane Katrina victims, but he also remembers one tough young lady with plenty of attitude. “She was one of the cellists I began teaching in 1999, and she was still with the program last year,” Marlow says. “She’s not really into the cello, but she clearly loves being around the Providence String Quartet and being part of the string quartet I coached.” When Marlow last saw her, she told him she was planning to apply to college. “She’s a great kid growing up in tough circumstances, and she’s got a hardened exterior,” Marlow says, “but I think we’ve helped her feel like she has a support system—people who care about her and want her to do well. I think she will do well.” —Christopher Dow |
Marlow says CMW is a unique musical model that hasn’t been on the radar for major music conservatories. “Public service is not a core part of the curriculum,” he says, “and that’s where Sebastian’s idealism caught me off guard. Couldn’t it be possible for a musician’s role in the community to be bigger than appearing on stage by night and disappearing into the practice studio by day? What would it be like if professional musicians felt like their work was a necessary . . . no, essential daily part of the fabric of society? We’d like to expand music schools’ thinking on what it means to be a professional musician in society to include urban residencies such as ours.”
Stalnaker says her Shepherd School cello professor, Norman Fischer, was a true inspiration. “His students are walking proof that great mentoring and inspirational teaching are equally essential ingredients to creating success,” she says, adding that he also encouraged her to look beyond the more obvious careers in music.
On a personal level, Marlow feels grateful for being part of “such a beautiful idea.” “For me,” he says, “music is ultimately a social act, one of connection. That’s why I’ve always loved chamber music and string quartets especially. As a model for a strong community, what better thing to see through CMW’s storefront windows then four people rehearsing music together, intently facing each other and learning to communicate effectively, all for the sake of creating a cohesive and meaningful product to share with others. That image certainly can be extended to other areas of civic life. I look to CMW to set a precedent for how music and musicians can not only bring music to the stage but help provide significant social capital for a community.” |
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