Creative Composing provides social and emotional outlet
A NOTE FROM JANE
The challenges facing our community are daunting and exacerbated by an ever-shifting landscape. For many of our students, return to school requires sitting in front of a Chromebook for 6 hours each day with unpredictable internet, little privacy, and no opportunity for spontaneity, new friends, or playing outside.
Here at ELM, our first priority was to ensure that our students were able to continue to play their instruments and connect with their ELM friends during musicianship classes. To our delight we found that while they greatly missed their orchestral ensembles, our students are thriving musically. We are pleased to report that 84 ELM students are receiving 45-minute private lessons each week in addition to their weekly musicianship classes. Our younger students who haven’t started their orchestral instrument are continuing on recorder and musicianship.
We also discovered that the pandemic has inspired unprecedented acts of creativity. This summer YOLA National at Home, an initiative of the LA Philharmonic, teamed up with El Sistema USA to sponsor the Collective Conservatory – a summer music creative composing camp for students from Sistema programs across California that culminated in an exciting concert. Ten ELM students and two teaching artist faculty participated.
The pandemic has also led to tremendous kindness and generosity. The intensity and duration of the pandemic have led to job losses, followed by food and housing insecurity. In response, our community has stepped up in unprecedented ways.
ELM’s tight-knit community has been embraced by a wider one, filled with individuals and organizations near and far. Delicious! Catering, our neighbor on Kerner Boulevard is preparing weekend dinners for 4 for each of our families. This generosity, sparked by a recent donation by Karen & Dan Dunn, has inspired a new local network of donors.
Recognizing that many of our students need extra academic support, a new cohort of ELM volunteers have stepped up to work one-to-one with our students as reading buddies and tutors. These tutors derive great pleasure in the relationships they have developed. Describing a great leap of comprehension and love for reading in one of her students, Joan, an ELM reading buddy recently wrote:
“I had no rational explanation for the hows and whys of Jocelyn’s self-initiated launch. I was just there to observe and admire. Today she gave me the gift of listening to her leap forward. I can’t wait for all that future sessions will bring.”
Another wrote: "The highlight of my week was when Donovan played Ode to Joy on his violin for me. Bliss".
With much gratitude for all that you do to strengthen and uplift our community,
Jane
ELM PRESENTS
Creative Composing
An exploration of movement, vocalization, and reflection
Currently, most students have weekly private zoom lessons and group musicianship classes. Our teachers are delighted that their students are gaining greater self-efficacy and autonomy and are impressed by their rapid musical growth during this time. The personalized contact with each student also provides us with a window into their lives and enables us to respond to special needs as they arise.
One of the more exciting impacts of moving to distance learning is the benefits of technology. This summer eight of our students participated in a Creative Composing camp with students from across California. The two teachers, Carol Adee (flute) and Sophie Powers (all brass) who also participated found it so inspirational that they are now co-teaching a 16-week (online) program for ELM students using our older students as mentors.
Bringing children together in these group classes provides social engagement and an emotional outlet through yoga-inspired breathing exercises, movement, vocalization, and reflection. The class uses improvisation skills to inspire creativity while teaching traditional music theory.
Our favorite journalist, Kate Fitzsimmons, interviewed Sophie and Carol for our ELM Spotlights series. You can feel their passion and enthusiasm for the project in the interview.
ELM COMMUNITY
It’s more than the music: Family meal program
As COVID cases soared in Marin (80% of cases are in the Canal community which represents only 16% of the county’s residents) and restrictions remained in place preventing many from returning to work, Karen and Dan Dunn were looking for a way to make a tangible difference in the lives of Marin residents struggling with food insecurity.
As a member of ELM’s Board, Karen Dunn knew we had distributed $45,000 to ELM families earlier in the year so she asked if ELM had the capacity to expand this program with a $25,000 gift. Jane jumped on the opportunity and sent a proposal to Jan Goldberg, founder of Delicious!, a local catering company (and Marin’s first green caterer) located just down the road from ELM. Jane proposed that Delicious! prepare fresh, healthy meals each week for ELM families. Jan loved the opportunity to give back to the community particularly the Canal where most of our ELM families live.
Delicious now delivers 50 freshly prepared nutritious meals for a family of 4 each week at ELM. This timing corresponds with the launching of our Parking Lot Conservatory in which our younger cohorts meet on Saturday mornings in small, socially distanced groups for outdoor lessons at the ELM facility.
We are grateful for the generosity of the Dunns and the opportunity to collaborate with Jan and the Delicious team. You may have tasted their goodies at our past Open Houses We are delighted to promote their take-out offering available for curbside pick-up or delivery. Order today!
Want to make a tangible impact on the community? Contribute to our Food and Emergency Fund Campaign.
DISTANCE LEARNING
With SRCS extending distance learning extended indefinitely, ELM is continuing our remote music lessons, has opened our parking lot for small group lessons, and is expanding access to academic support through our reading buddy and academic tutoring programs.
Reading Buddies
This spring we started a tutoring program along with a reading buddy program that connects mentors with an ELM students to explore literature and develop a love of reading. Joselyn and Joan (above) are reading Kira Kira, a Newberry Award winning novel about a Japanese-American family living in Georgia. Joselyn is excited by learning new words and progressing through each page with ease.
Private Lessons
Each week our teachers provide 84 children private lessons on 8 different instruments including oboe and euphonium. Our teachers agree that providing the one-to-one attention to students has allowed most students to thrive musically.
Parking Lot Conservatory
One of the challenges of one-to-one learning is our limited budget. Our younger students make up our largest cohorts so our current teachers cannot see all of their students for individual lessons each week within their budgeted hours. Equity is built into ELM’s DNA so in order to provide each student with an equal amount of instruction, we have launched the Parking Lot Conservatory.
ELM NEEDS YOUR SUPPORT
Commit to quality music education
Your donations give our dedicated team the chance to design programming that provides academic support, social and emotional wellness, and strong parent engagement in addition to high-quality musical education for children and families in the Canal neighborhood of San Rafael.
UPCOMING PERFORMANCES
Save the Date
Our winter concert will be performed as a virtual concert on December 13, 2020 at 2pm. We will feature students, siblings, teachers performing, and more.