A string project lesson at Fairview Elementry
A string project lesson at Fairview Elementry
The first-grade girl from Bloomington’s Fairview Elementary looked nervous. She was about to play violin on the Musical Arts Center stage at the IU Jacobs School of Music. She’d lost a pad for her instrument, and she was minutes from standing in front of a large audience.
"Well, you just play the best you can," reassured an IU graduate student. Relieved, the girl bounced off to join her classmates.
Shalin Liu
Shalin Liu, donor to the Fairview Elementary String Project, loves to tell this story. It’s from last May, during the first student recital of the one-year-old project. Through Matching the Promise, all 46 first-grade students at Fairview learn the violin: not as an afterschool program, but as part of the regular curriculum.
The string project is a collaboration between IU’s Jacobs School and Fairview, which serves children from some of Bloomington’s lowest-income neighborhoods—kids who rarely get to take music lessons. The project lets researchers at Jacobs assess the value of instrument lessons at such an early age. "It’s something that’s never really been studied," notes Dean Gwyn Richards. And the children are receiving something incredible, in Liu’s opinion.
"Music can be a friend for your whole life," she insists. "When you have that, you can face the hard times."
Three days a week, these young performers are under the tutelage of IU Associate Professor of Music Education Brenda Brenner, her graduate students, and the dedicated teachers from Fairview Elementary. There are volunteers, too.
An anonymous donor provided the project’s violins. Denver Wrightsman, the Jacobs School’s facilities coordinator, built the cabinet where they are stored. "People have come out of the woodwork," says Professor Brenner. "A woman read about it and sent in music stands. She wanted to help."
She adds, "A high school student who helped last year told me, ‘I am just dreaming about getting back to Fairview.’"
The project was already underway when Liu, an IU alumna, president, and founder of the Summer Star Foundation for Nature, Art, and Humanity in greater Boston, visited a friend at IU. Liu had always planned to give a gift to IU. "Bloomington is my passion," she says. But she came with ideas: to help the underprivileged and to support the arts.
"When I heard about Fairview, it was as if people at Jacobs were thinking exactly what I was," says Liu. Professor Brenner says their meeting was like "the meeting of good friends. We immediately connected and found we shared common goals for the children."
For Dean Richards, the Fairview project is a logical extension of the Jacobs School’s mission. "We are reaching out to people we don’t often touch through other programs," he notes. Moreover, the project will provide invaluable research. Will these children like school more? Will it improve their reading? Their attendance? Their confidence?
Professor Brenner has already seen progress. "I am not trying to teach great violinists," she insists. But any instrument involves practice and discipline, and the kids are coming through. "You say ‘great job,’ and ‘you can do it,’ and it makes a real difference," Professor Brenner says. "This project is one of the most rewarding things I do." 
See the May 2009 recital of the Fairview Elementry String Project.
