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Musical Courier 1928-06-21: Vol 96 Iss 25, 1928
69 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1An Organized School Music Curriculum
2A Practical Accomplishment at Grand Rapids, Michigan
3By David Mattern
5DAVID MATTERN is a former member of the faculty of the Eastman School of Music, and of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition to his work as Supervisor of Music of Grand Rapids, Mich., he is conductor of the Kalamazoo Symphony Orchestra and the Schubert Club (male chorus) of Grand Rapids. He is a member of the summer faculty of the University School of Music, Ann Arbor, and the National High School Orchestra Camp, Interlochen, Mich., and is on the Instrumental Committee of the Music Supervisors National Conference. He is also a vice-president of the National Shrine Music Directors' Association.—THE EDITOR.
7FROM the time music made its first timid entry into the regular school curriculum it has been appreciatively dealt with in Grand Rapids; under a succession of capable music supervisors previous to the present incumbent it has expanded tremendously in its scope.
9For the sake of brevity I will give some facts of the department activities as they are conducted today. I hope that the reader will not conclude that we strive for "quantity production" rather than quality. Modesty restricts the writer to statements of production and thus he ventures to say that the policy of the department is to give the children and youth of our city the best in musical education and experience.
11BUILDING FROM THE BOTTOM UP.
12Music begins in the kindergarten with the rote songs and the occasional kindergarten band for training in rhythm.
14In the elementary schools are the assembly choruses. Combined school singing is a regular feature of the grade school routine. The separate school room songs are chosen to correlate with the work in history, geography and literature.
16The combined grade schools last year gave a choral presentation of the cantata, The Ugly Duckling, by Granville English. Six hundred children took part. The Inter High School orchestra played the difficult orchestral accompaniment. The instrumental department also demonstrated the year's work of the beginning classes in all instruments.
18ORGANIZATION OF INSTRUMENTAL INSTRUCTION
19Instrumental instruction begins in the fourth grade. In every grade school there are violin classes, ensembles of woodwind and brass instruments, and grade orchestras. In addition to this, free technic classes for all instruments are held every Saturday morning from eight to twelve at Vocational High School. This constitutes a great public school music conservatory with every teacher a specialist in his instrument. All members of school orchestras and bands, string quartets or other ensembles who appear publicly are required to take these lessons or private lessons from an approved teacher. Standardized sets of instruments for grade schools are being installed as rapidly as possible. The City Federation of Clubs is assisting in a movement to have every club adopt a school and equip it adequately. The place to begin building the civic orchestra is in the grade schools; when the pupil graduates from high school he is ready for the civic orchestra.
21Bands are first organized in the Junior High Schools which also have their glee clubs and orchestras. Both the Junior and Senior High School music organizations are affiliated with and sponsored by the Michigan Federation of Music Clubs.
23SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL ACTIVITIES
24This year's annual Spring Festival, on April 11, was given over to High School music with separate appearances of the boys' and girls' glee clubs from six Senior High Schools, a combined chorus formed from these clubs singing Emitt Spiritum, by Schuetky, unaccompanied, and Gounod's Gallia with full symphony orchestra instrumentation furnished by the Inter High School Orchestra. Student conductors, trained under the direction of the music supervisor, took charge of the orchestral program, conducting compositions by Wagner, Jarnefelt and Grainger. The concert was repeated for the convention of the Michigan Federation of Music Clubs in session at Grand Rapids.
26The High School music organizations have given their services constantly to civic affairs. A Citizens Committee, representing prominent clubs formed to establish a fund for the purchase of grade school instruments, gave three full scholarships to boys who will attend the National High School Orchestra Camp this summer where they will play under the batons of Stock, Gabrilowitsch, Damrosch, Goossens, Hanson, and other great conductors.
28IMPORTANT NEW ACTIVITIES
29The most vitally important contribution during the past year has been the work of the High School classes in voice training. Heretofore we have been teaching songs but not the art of singing. The ideal high school chorus can now approach realization, for each member is taught to be a soloist with an understanding of how to conserve, strengthen and improve the voice. He becomes an intelligent musician, sensitive to rhythm, phrase and tone quality, and their relation to interpretation. His singing is vitalized with imagination; the tone is fresh and free from all interference and strain. Such results have been in a great measure attained at the end of the first year's work in three of the six senior high schools and in one of the two junior high schools where these classes were introduced. Voice culture Normal classes have been conducted for Junior College students and also for teachers in the department of music. These classes have all strictly followed the course outlined by Frederick Haywood, of New York City and the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. Mr. Haywood recently surveyed the work of all the junior and senior high schools on invitation from the Board of Education and the supervisor of music.
31PRIVATE TEACHERS BENEFIT FROM PUBLIC SCHOOL MUSIC DEVELOPMENT
32The school's province is to discover and impartially select those who should develop musical gifts. Both vocal and instrumental pupils are urged to take private lessons wherever possible, and the classes eventually result in a great increase of pupils for the private teacher.
34COMMUNITY MUSIC ORGANIZATIONS BENEFIT
35The community recruits accomplished singers from the high school graduates for the adult male choruses, church choirs and oratorio societies, and players for the civic orchestra. With this responsibility recognized, school music becomes more than a mere recreation or social frill.
37ORGANIZED MUSIC ACTIVITIES UNIFY ENTIRE FACULTY
38This year an orchestra of fifty players, a men's glee club, and a mixed chorus of two hundred were recruited from the ranks of the public school teachers and were a great unifying force in bringing the teaching staff together.
40In the senior high school, as in the elementary grades, there is correlation of choral and instrumental music with the physical training, dramatic and English departments.
42THE FUTURE OUTLOOK
43Music appreciation is fostered through the radio concerts and a regular graded outline making use of the Victrola and the school music organizations. The Damrosch and Detroit symphony concerts will be featured next year.
45Multiple string quartets and other ensembles will be organized and trained together, then reassembled in small units so that each school and neighborhood may have its own chamber music combination.
47Standardization of works in theory and harmony is awaiting the action of the state committee now at work upon a course to be followed throughout the state.
49Junior College provides a new three-year course in vocal and instrumental music for those preparing to teach these subjects in the schools. The organization of this course and the quality of the work offered, including practice teaching, has been favorably commented upon by many visitors to the city school system.
51Beginning with the fall term a detailed curriculum will be ready covering the work in vocal and instrumental music and music appreciation in the first six grades and junior high school. Dr. Kyte, curriculum expert of the University of Michigan, who has been acting in an advisory capacity to the Grand Rapids teachers in the preparation of a curricula in all subjects, states that the music curriculum will compare favorably with any in the country.
53Recital Management Arthur Judson Notes
54Sigurd Nilsson, basso of the Civic Opera Company of Philadelphia, won first prize for the best rendition of an encore number at the First National Convention of the Vocal Teachers Guild, held at the Park Central Hotel. Hardesty Johnson and his wife, Isabel Garland, who have been touring the West Coast in "recitals of poetry and music," came farther East recently to fulfill an engagement at the Normal University at Normal, Ill. Benno Rabinoif appeared as soloist with the Children's Chorus at the Ann Arbor May Festival. Princess Jacques de Broglie entertained the patients of the Montefiore Sanitorium at Bedford Hills, N. Y., recently, and on June 25 the Princess will appear with Charles Stratton, tenor, at the Kirtland Club, Cleveland, Ohio. Katherine Bacon concluded a busy season with a concert at the State Teachers' College at Kirkville, Mo. Max Kaplick will concertize this summer in London, Paris, Vienna, Berlin and other music centers. Oscar Ziegler has been re-engaged for the Salzburg Festival this summer. Constance Wardle, dramatic soprano, appeared in recital in Catskill, N. Y. David Barnett, pianist, has sailed for Paris, where at the invitation of Alfred Cortot and Marc Pincherle, editor of Musique, he will give a concert in the new Pleyel Hall. Sara Sokolovsky Fried presented her piano pupils in recital in Steinway Concert Hall. The foregoing artists all are under Recital Management Arthur Judson.
56Harcum School Music Notes
57At the Harcum School at the close of each year it is customary for every music student to prepare and play her entire repertory of pieces learned during the year. This naturally furnishes a series of highly varied programs, ranging from the simpler, less advanced numbers to the more exacting and involved concertos. But in any instance it is very interesting to see the marked improvement of the student since the "try-out" musicale at the beginning of the year.
59During commencement week this year, several of the girls gave complete programs modelled in arrangement after those of concert pianists. For the most part, these programs included selections from Bach, a sonata by Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven, and several pieces from the modern and romantic schools of music. The girls who presented complete programs were Fay McKenzie, Ellen Dannenbaum, Carolyn Huffard, Jean Harcum and Katharine Yew. Their recitals were most enjoyable and gave ample proof of conscientious and diligent application on the part of the students. They played with musical feeling and artistic finish.
61The remaining programs, though shorter, were none the less entertaining, and irrespective of the length, there was evidence of some genuine talent among the girls.
63Assisting at each of these musicals was a member of the Jenny Lind Club, which is the school's vocal organization.
65Antonio Vidal to Give Scholarships
66Antonio Vidal will not spend the summer in Europe this season as is his usual custom, but will remain in New York throughout the warm months. He states that one of the reasons why he cannot enjoy European resorts with his family this year is that he will be active as representative in America for Gran Teatro Liceo of Barcelona, in which theater Chaliapin sang last season. The impresario of that opera house is of the opinion that operatic celebrities are to be found in America, and as a result he has appointed Mr. Vidal as his representative here. It is understood that Mr. Vidal is completing negotiations for the engagement of a noted ballet and also of two prominent opera stars for the spring season of 1929 at Barcelona.
68Mr. Vidal, who has sung in the opera houses of Europe with artists such as Gayarre, Barrientos, De Luca, Bori, Tetrazzini, Ruffo, Galli-Curci, and many others equally well known, maintains a studio in New York, where he teaches beginners as well as opera and concert artists. Mr. Vidal states that as an inducement to American students he will give free tuition this summer to two promising American pupils.
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