Published June 7, 2016 in the Straight. Original article here with images.
More than 150 students and parents showed up at 4 p.m. outside the
Vancouver school board office today to protest the elimination of
elementary band and strings programs.
The student-led initiative titled “Save Our Music” saw music students
standing in silence, holding their instruments and various signs that
read “I’d rather play.”
“It’s more than just an optional arts program,” said Bianca Chui, a
Grade 11 band student from Sir Winston Churchill secondary, to the Straight. “It’s
something that enriches all of our lives and I think that it’ll be
really sad if elementary students no longer have the opportunity to
learn or play an instrument.”
Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO)
conductor Bramwell Tovey was also present at the demonstration, and
spoke to the large group of music students.
“I want to apologize to you for all the grownups who make funding
decisions. The grownups have failed you,” Tovey said into a megaphone.
“We need to have grownups that say music must be part of the school
curriculum.”
The strings and band program operates in 44 Vancouver
schools. It is estimated that cutting it would save the district just
under $400,000 per year.
In 2015, the yearly fee to participate in
the band program was upped from $25 to $50 in an effort to make the
continuation of the program more feasible.
However, VSB chair Mike Lombardi
said in March that senior management proposals called for the
elimination of the program unless the provincial government provided the
VSB with additional funding.
One of the students at the protest expressed his passion for the program.
“We’re
depriving kids of an opportunity that they have had under the Vancouver
public school system since it was instated,” said Xiaoyu Huang, a
member of Sir Winston Churchill Secondary’s music council, told the Straight.
“The
impact on kids who have been in a program and are now removed from it
is especially devastating because it’s an interest that can blossom into
something for the rest of their lives,” Huang added.
Christin Reardon MacLellan, president of the Coalition for Music Education in B.C., told the Straight that
the idea of the “silent orchestra” came from a group of enthusiastic
music students on the Sir Winton Churchill Music Council—a place that
supports music in schools and collaborates with other student music
councils across the city.
The band and strings programs are dubbed
an “optional” program, but MacLellan believes that the issue goes
beyond being able to play an instrument at a public school.
“That’s
where the biggest problem lies—you cut an 'optional' program but you
deny 2,000 students of music specialist teachers,” said MacLellan, who's
also conductor of UBC Concert Winds. “Until they put an elementary
music specialist in every single school, they can’t possibly be cutting a
program that is the only access to specialists for so many students.”
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