It is a classic recipe that seems almost impossibly simple: Give a kid a violin, and he or she not only comes away with a few pretty tunes but also with a sense of accomplishment, dedication and confidence.
This winning formula will be on display this Saturday when the Providence String Quartet performs pieces by Czech composer Antonín Dvorák at the Granoff Music Center.
Before the concert, entitled "Dvorák in America," members of the quartet will be joined in a panel discussion by students of Community MusicWorks, an outreach organization founded by violist Sebastian Ruth. Faculty from Tufts and the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service as well as community leaders will also add their opinions to the debate on the future and efficacy of community music programs.
"One of the main things that we're going to be talking about are the ideas behind music engagement," Ruth said. "How can we design civic engagement programs that have the greatest impact?"
The violist's work has already had a big impact on students like 15 year-old Fidelia Vasquez, who has been studying with the program for seven years and will be a member of the panel.
"I have friends who claim to be in gangs, or who are doing drugs, and it was something that kept me away from it," she said. "Instead of being out there doing that kind of stuff, we were inside playing music."
In Dvorák's work, Ruth found a similar dedication to the underprivileged and disenfranchised. "It was very interesting to learn that 150 years ago, Dvorák, who we think of as a very European composer, was running this kind of school," he said, adding that the musician ran the progressive National Conservatory in New York in the 1890s. The school was particularly open to minorities and women at a time when most other colleges shunned them.
Opuses No. 96 and 97, which Dvorák wrote during this time in the United States, are sparkling and highly entertaining pieces sure to excite the audience. From the first energetic strike of the violin, there is a distinctly American flavor to the opus that lends it a peculiarly familiar aura. It is romantic, to be sure, but never boring, clichéd or academic. Ruth called the pieces "irresistibly lively," and the description is apt.
The night's activities are an extension of a grander mutual initiative between the university and the music department designed to improve town-gown relations through music. The Tufts Community Music program, which is just beginning its second semester of operation, is run by Joseph and Edith Auner and offers students in Somerville and Medford public schools the opportunity to be taught by undergraduates in the music department.
Through the combined effort of the Auners and Liz Hollander, a senior fellow at the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service as well as Barbara Rubel in the office of community relations, the quartet was recognized as the perfect embodiment of the values Tufts has begun to implement in its own program.
"One of the reasons I wanted to expose it to Tufts," Hollander said, "is that these young musicians and their fellows are kind of at the forefront of a new way of thinking about a music career - what I would call a civically engaged music career. [They] don't imagine that it's all about giving private lessons and getting an orchestra job; they take your skills into the neighborhood."
Carrying those skills into the neighborhood is easy with the aid of a loudspeaker that projects rehearsals into the streets outside of the quartet's storefront space.
"The thing that's very effective and courageous about what they do is that the place where they practice and teach is right in the middle of a low-income neighborhood in Providence," Auner said.
For Ruth, the goal is to be both teacher and mentor, which is why he places an emphasis on long-term relationships within the program. He organizes potluck dinners for students and their families where the atmosphere is casual and warm. Yet it is the element of discipline, according to Ruth, that makes music so effective as a community building tool.
Hollander echoed this sentiment, saying that "It's this combination of discipline and esteem that makes the program effective."
With Community MusicWork celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, Hollander said the organization's success is something she would like to see Tufts duplicate. There is just something about music, Ruth said, that works.
"We all need to feel like we belong, especially teenagers. If we can offer something to kids by saying, 'You belong here; we don't have any special colors for you to wear, but you can play a violin or a cello and belong here. There's a worldwide community of musicians that you will belong to.' Then, you'll be speaking their language."
