Building Richer Lives Through Music BALTIMORE, MD (wypr) - Marin Alsop, conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and Dan Trahey, a tuba player turned classroom ringmaster, hope to lead pupils at the Harriet Tubman School toward a richer future. WYPR's Senior News Analyst Fraser Smith has this report on OrchKids, the school's pioneering new program.

It's instrument day at the Harriet Tubman School on Harlem Street in West Baltimore. Soon, boxes of every size are stacked on the sidewalk. Then, kids pour out the school house door to help carry the boxes inside. They'd been waiting since school - and a program called OrchKids - began several months ago. BSO conductor Marin Alsop, OrchKids prime mover, is there to help the helpers.

"You want to take two? All right!"

Dan Trahey, the program's director, is there, too, making sure eager youngsters don't over-estimate their carrying capacity...

"Can you do it on your own? You can't do it on your own? Let him help."

A wave of excitement pushes the young musicians back through the freshly painted red door and up the stairs to the OrchKids classroom.

The program director, known as Mr. Dan, asks for quiet. Instantly. Not a sound can be heard

"We need to be very, very respectful because we have some wonderful guests in our school today. All of you have met Miss Marin before but can all of you say Hello, Miss Marin? Hello, Miss Marin. She is the conductor, right? She is the boss, she's my boss. She's the musician's boss. He's everybody's boss at the symphony, right."

She's a musician as well as a conductor and she's got a message.

"This is my violin and I wanted to bring it and show it to you. I've had it all these years I love my violin and I've taken really good care of it. Isn't it beautiful? You know what? Having an instrument is like having a pet. You have to take good care of it."

As it turns out, the OrchKids have been learning how to care for their instruments for weeks.

Their first instrument? Buckets, heavy-duty, bright orange buckets, the indestructible kind you might find on a construction sites. And, of course, drumsticks.

In an earlier session, anticipating instrument day, Trahey instructed the players to hold the sticks quietly in their laps. Discipline and self-control are part of every lesson. The usually squirmy first-graders comply - usually. But sometimes the instruments get airborne.

"Oh, no! What's going to happen when I but a violin in your hands?"

Then he invites the drummers to play - as loudly as they wish.

These kids have the honor of being Baltimore's first OrchKids. It's a music program. But it s more than that. Modeled after a wildly successful program, called Il Sistema in Venezuela, the program aims to build orchestras and enrich young lives. Conductor Alsop financed it with 100-thousand dollars from her McArthur Foundation's genius grant. She hopes the program will start "a cycle of hope and possibility."

The children of this poor and occasionally crime-challenged neighborhood seem ready to be her partners. As fidgety as any group of mostly seven-year-olds, they are remarkably attentive to "Mr. Dan" and his team of instructors. On this day, the team includes Conductor Alsop.

"I want them to feel the world is open to them. It's a world of possibility. Not a closed world they'll see that the world is not a cold, tough place for them but a world they can access and be a citizen of."

None of the 30 youngsters stand as tall as a cello.

"These kids are little so that's the first limitation, just trying to manage these big instruments. But the desire to play an instrument with a certain kind of sound. These kids are little, but there they go. They can't wait."

What they lack in physical stature they make up for in rapt attention. Principal Kimberly Sollars says they're the envy of their schoolmates already. They're an elite group and determined to remain so. Best behavior is a goal they reach every day - mostly.

"A child gets into a little bit of trouble and all you have to say is Don t forget you represent OrchKids.' And they get themselves together very quickly."

First-graders may not be famous for focus, but the Orch-Kids kids are responding to their new teachers.

"You have to have high expectations for children and as long as you have high expectations and believe they can achieve they will. They'll step up to the plate each and every time."

Almost everyone the Tubman School wants to be part of the first-year class, kept small until the program gets going. Promising results are already in. You see it first in the faces. And, Ms. Sollars says, kids with spotty records of attendance don't miss a day now.

No one wants to miss anything. Recent highlights include a trip to the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, the school for the arts and a visit from Roberto Zambrano, a cellist and official of Il Sistema in Venezuela.

He offered a brief recital.

Then Trahey suggests a jam session. Zambrano on cello, the kids on buckets. The Venezuelan lays down a rhythmic base line. The young drummers, led by Trahey, respond.

Trahey tells his young charges that they will be able play as well as their guest, Mr. Zambrano, if they practice as much as he does.

He and Conductor Alsop say mastery of an instrument is only part of the OrchKids vision.. If they decide that music must be their profession, great. But understanding that the world can be open to them is the fundamental point.

Principal Sollars says she and the conductor are definitely on the same page.

"We're on the train together to achievement. Our slogan this year is Endless Possibilities'. Harriet Tubman didn't have any limits on what she thought she could do and we have no limits on what they're going to do.

OrchKids, too, has no limits, Trahey says. It has grown in Venezuela to more than 100 orchestras - and an estimated 300-thousand kids. Money is not an issue there, he says. It's all about kindling hope and possibility. One youth orchestra leads to another. Here, the Harriet Tubman model could be duplicated across the city and even the country.

"If you listen to the way Venezuelans talk about it; it's like scripture. They all share the same idea about how it should run, not pedagogically, but about the overall outcome. It's all about brotherhood and raising you self p and being more culturally aware. They are creating social change."

After the children hefted their new instruments up to the OrchKids classroom, Mr. Dan helped open the boxes. The basses, the flutes, the violins -- and the baritone, a small tuba-like instrument. Richard Johnson thought this baritone had his name on it.

"This is going to be Richard's baritone. Richard do you remember how t o make a sound? How? Show me. Just show me. In front of all these people I ll put you on the spot. Very good. Okay!" 07:03

Lynette Fields, who has three kids in the program, says the Harlem neighborhood is a loving and welcoming place, a place she says has "calmed down" a lot. She says it's a place where you can watch kids grow up.

And now, with OrchKids, that dream has real shape.

"To start so young and be able to play instruments with the BSO. It's real exciting."
"A dream."
"Yes. I'm looking forward to that dream. I'll sit back with a smile on my face "

With so much energy and excitement, it doesn't seem like such a tall order, after all.

I'm Fraser Smith reporting from West Baltimore for 881-1 WYPR.
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