Minnesota music teachers play alongside Minnesota Orchestra members in special concerts

Minnesota Orchestra Music Director Thomas Søndergård was grieving last week for a childhood music instructor who'd recently died, a man he first encountered as a 9-year-old while growing up in Holstebro, Denmark.

"He was one of the most important figures in my whole youth," he said. "There's not one person that meant more to me in my education than my music teacher."

Søndergård repeated that sentiment to an audience last weekend, appropriately enough, during special concerts in which the orchestra invited Minnesota music instructors to join them onstage.

The "side-by-side" events featured 54 educators from around the state performing a piece alongside the orchestra on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon as part of a sampler concert featuring selections from the upcoming season, which starts in September. The orchestra has held similar side-by-side concerts in the past involving students, but this was the group's first time playing alongside teachers.

Each educator, selected from among more than 100 applicants, sat beside an orchestra member playing the same instrument. Together, they performed Gustav Holst's "Jupiter," part of a suite called "The Planets." (If you don't know that piece by name, you might find it familiar; it can be heard in movies and TV shows including 1983′s "The Right Stuff" and an episode of "The Simpsons," and has been played during important occasions, such as Queen Elizabeth's 1953 coronation.)

Ironically perhaps, this event celebrating music educators came at a time when the Minneapolis School District, facing a projected $115 million budget gap, is considering ending its districtwide fifth-grade instrumental music classes. Principals at individual schools would still have the option to spend their discretionary money on a music teacher, but not all schools could afford that.

In an interview, Søndergård was visibly saddened by the prospect of the cut, wondering if there was anything he could do to help. The side-by-side was planned long before the budget proposal arose, partly because Søndergård "expressed right from the beginning that supporting music education was key," said Jessica Lowry, who manages education for the orchestra.

Søndergård values music education, and not just because it led to him becoming a world-famous conductor.

"If we stick just to numbers and letters in our lives, then we will maybe not be complete humans," he said at a reception for the educators. "That's why their passion for the music is so important."

Learning to play music and beyond

Søndergård is not alone in valuing music education for all. Musicians, teachers and others shared similar thoughts last week.

"No one wants band and orchestra instruments to be cut in fifth grade — no one," said Kathryn Nettleman, the orchestra's associate principal bass. "If we take that away from our kids, that's such a poverty of thinking, in my opinion."

At a time when American youth face a variety of troubles — loneliness; an achievement gap; excessive screens or social media; crime; rising rates of anxiety, depression and suicide — "music gives kids something to do that is fundamentally very creative and positive," Nettleman said.

Music classes teach "discipline, patience, teamwork and active learning — those are all skills that you need to do anything well, I think."

Many studies show benefits from learning to play music, from boosting brain development in children to improving cognitive health in old age.

Music students "are learning basic skills of human connection," said orchestra trumpet player Charles Lazarus. "Listening skills, teamwork, leadership, empathy."

A popular social-media meme suggests that schools should teach "life skills" like cooking, changing a tire and filing taxes, most of which can be learned from families or elsewhere. Whereas music education, Nettleman noted, requires teachers with specialized skills.

In recent school board meetings, Minneapolis Superintendent Lisa Sayles-Adams has apologized to staff and students who would be affected by the budget reductions and said she hopes for more state and federal funding. "But until that point, it is our duty to propose a balanced budget that will best serve our students with the resources we have," she said.

Music programs vary widely from one school district to another, partly depending on community sentiment. Others that have considered saving money with cuts to music classes include the Grand Forks, N.D., district. But after community members, including students, filled a board meeting asking that the board reconsider, they scaled back the plan, eliminating only one music staff position (that of a retiring teacher).

Austin, Minn., is very supportive of its school music programs, said Gene Schott, orchestra director at Austin High School, who played cello in the side-by-side. "It's a point of pride for them."

Dawson, Minn., a city of fewer than 1,500 people about 150 miles west of Minneapolis, also has a tradition of supporting music education. "It's one of the things that I love about our district," said Allysa Hurley, who teaches music, including orchestra, in the Dawson-Boyd School District.

"If you can get the kids to start [playing music], they'll generally stick with it," said Hurley, who played bass in the side-by-side. "One of our leading athletes is also leading the cello section."

Schools in Minneapolis' lower-income neighborhoods tend to have fewer discretionary dollars available than those in affluent areas, which as recently as a few years ago created inequities in fifth-grade music education. Reid Wixson, director of instrumental music at Southwest High School in Minneapolis, was part of a successful effort to establish dedicated funding so every fifth-grader in the district's 40-plus elementary schools had access to musical instrument programs, a change that began in 2021.

"We took the power away from principals and their discretionary budgets," said Wixson, who played clarinet in the side-by-side. "So principals didn't have to decide between having a [school] nurse and music."

"It's been a huge improvement and it's affecting the middle schools" by giving students a head start on learning instruments, said Brian Hadley, who teaches at Andersen United Middle School.

Without the districtwide program, "the equity is just gone," Hadley said. Which in turn might exacerbate gaps in other areas of education and achievement.

"What if MPS could sort of double down, give kids early access in fourth or even third grade to instrumental learning — what might that do to test scores, literacy?" Nettleman wondered. "We live in a community of great resources and abundance. To me this is so shortsighted, this denial of access."

Somebody to look up to

The music educators' thoughts were on happier topics during most of the festivities last week — two rehearsals and two concerts.

"I feel like an 8-year-old!" Beatrice Blanc, a violin instructor at Minneapolis' MacPhail Center for Music, said happily as the instructors filed into the auditorium for rehearsal.

Schott, the Austin teacher, said later that he was nervous going into the rehearsal, but "after the first two measures, it was just me and the music." He was experiencing déjà vu: As a student in 1987, he had performed at Orchestra Hall with the Minnesota All-State Orchestra. Now, 37 years later, he was back playing on the same stage.

Learning an instrument "changed my life," Schott said. "My eyes were opened to the possibilities of becoming a musician."

The instructors weren't the only ones excited. "Hi, Dr. Bertsch!" Mimi Von Voorst, an Orchestra Hall usher, called out to Colleen Bertsch, orchestra director at Roseville Area High School, as the group of educators entered the auditorium just before Sunday's concert started.

Von Voorst, 17, a junior at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis, loves her job with the orchestra and aspires to be a music educator herself someday. She plays in the Greater Twin Cities Youth Symphony, where conductor Jack Reynertson — a percussionist in the side-by-side — is "my favorite orchestra conductor that I've ever had" (out of eight, she said, after pausing to count).

Von Voorst shared her own thoughts on the value of music education. "I think it's a really good balance of individual work and teamwork," she said. "No matter how good you are, there's always somebody to look up to."

Everyone in the room at the side-by-sides — the audience, the orchestra members — seemed to look up to music educators.

Søndergård mentioned them again in his closing remarks on Sunday, moving the audience to stand and clap loudly for the second time that day, the first being right after they performed "Jupiter."

Over the course of the two days, the music educators received four standing ovations.