Amazing High School Orchestra these days

[Arthur Hu <ArthurH@TANGIS.COM>]

SEATTLE GARFIELD HS ORCHESTRA RIVALS COLLEGE ORCHESTRAS, GOES TO 3WK
JAPAN TRIP z42\clip\2000\06\garforch.txt
http://archives.seattletimes.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=kids0
4&date=20000604&query=garfield
Seattle Times Company June 04, 2000 Music opens the door to Japan for
Garfield students by Melinda Bargreen Seattle Times music critic

Comment: Forget their reputation for National Merit Scholars. Their
orchestra is positively amazing. It's better than any youth or
college orchestra I've ever played in except the 1970s era Seattle
Youth Symphony (which was sprinkled with college students).

They have THREE (3) orchestras, when they put the top 2 together,
they had a dozen string basses, 3 harps, a half-dozen bassoons, and
plenty of strings. The only downside is that there were only 2 or 3
African Americans visible, plenty of Asians. These guys can handle
Copeland Rodeo, Applacian Spring, and Holst Planets, very advanced
stuff. One parent remarked the Garfield orchestra was nothing like
this 40 years ago when she played. It sounded better than the very
good high school orchestra that was featured on Frontline as the
school where Gov GW Bush sends his kids. These guys are going to
spend 3 weeks and raised $2,400 each to go to Japan. I didn't hear
Lindbergh high school, but we were lucky to throw together 15 strings
in the 70s with eine kleine nachtmusik, now they have 2 orchestras,
and it's mostly Euromerican kids toting violin cases at AG Bell
elementary where my kids go. Maybe there's something to be said for
kids today doing more than they did when we were kids, but then
again, there's a world of difference between proving kids can do
amazing things and doing it bass ackwards by demanding "world class
performance" first and then punishing if it doesn't happen.

I was handing out flyers and talking, again about 10 to 2 against
the WASL, the K12-2000 initiative folks were out in force too.

----------------------------------------

When Marcus Tsutakawa asked the Garfield High School Orchestra to
come up with a student code of conduct for next month's tour of
Japan, he left the room. It was up to the students, not the teacher,
to decide on the rules.

This gives you one glimpse of why Tsutakawa gets such great results
from his award-winning orchestra, which regularly takes top honors at
regional and even international festivals. The low-key conductor not
only treats his students like adults; he also expects them to have
their own high expectations. Inevitably, they do; Seattle Symphony
music director Gerard Schwarz calls the orchestra "stupendous" and
"finer than any (ensemble) I have been a part of during the years of
my youth."

The resulting code of conduct, by the way, began with "no drugs, no
alcohol" and went all the way down to "no whining." In between were
some practical considerations, such as "no practicing after 9 p.m. or
before breakfast," and "always stick to the buddy system." Students
also urged the abandonment of those eternal Walkman headphones and
American preconceptions about food, opening themselves up to meeting
new people and learning new ways.

Before they depart for Japan, the touring orchestra and its two
training ensembles at Garfield will present a final Bon Voyage
Concert at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday in Meany Theater, with the $6-$12
tickets all benefiting the tour fund. They'll play the same
repertoire Japanese audiences will hear: Borodin's "Polovetsian
Dances," Bernstein's "Candide" Overture, the finale from Act II of
Verdi's "Aida" and Howard Hanson's "Romantic" Symphony.

You may wonder why high-school kids need to make a musical tour of
Japan, a trip that will cost a great deal of money and effort. The
four seniors who were along three years ago on the Garfield
Orchestra's tour of Vienna can explain why experiences of foreign
culture, home stays, school visits and sightseeing are among the
highlights of their entire school experience.

"You get a lot out of being together, getting to know other people in
the orchestra in a way you'd never do in a classroom," says Nick
Taylor.

"You learn to perform under adverse conditions, where there's a
church altar right in front of the French horns, and there's a new
concert hall every day," says Kate McDonald, adding, "We had the
opportunity to really connect with other people, to learn how they
eat and behave and live. We've kept in touch with some of the Munich
friends we made on the earlier trip."

"We practiced so hard," says Ashley Siple, "and we learned that hard
work is really worth it. We also learned responsibility and
independence. We'll be so ready to head off to college."

"It instills such a desire to go out and learn," says Andrew Schirmer
of the earlier tour. "I'll have a love of traveling all my life
because of this. This Japanese trip is about growing up - providing
us with the opportunity to expand our horizons to relate culturally
to the Japanese."

Tsutakawa, whom all the kids call "Tsoot," just smiles as the players
talk. Earlier, before they arrived, he discussed his high hopes for
this orchestra and how far they've come.

"Things are going really, really well," he says, "and I'm very proud
of the orchestra's musical level.

"We made an earlier trip to Japan in 1993, and this one will be
different in many ways. We will visit a high school in Hiroshima; the
woman setting this up, Jennifer Kunitsugu, is one of my former
students who went on the 1993 trip. Now she is teaching at a junior
high school in a program that brings native English speakers to Japan
for instruction.

"We will go to Hiroshima Peace Park and lay a wreath at the memorial
there to a young girl who believed that if she folded 1,000 cranes,
she would survive the radiation sickness. She died, but ever since,
people have been placing thousands and thousands of cranes on her
memorial. We're all folding cranes now, trying to get to 1,000.
Sometimes there is a little too much enthusiasm; the other day in
rehearsal I looked over and there was the second bassoon, doing
cranes instead of music."

The group flies from Portland to Nagoya, a much smaller and more
manageable airport than Tokyo. The three-week tour will take the
group to Osaka and Kobe as well as Hiroshima and the Okayama
Prefecture in Western Japan (where Tsutakawa has relatives and
ancestors). One of the tour stops will include Matsumoto, the
hometown of Shinichi Suzuki (founder of the Suzuki violin school),
where the Garfield students will perform the first movement of
Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4 with 30 young Suzuki violinists.

"I designed the tour," says Tsutakawa, "because I know what these
guys will enjoy. We're going to go on the super-fast Bullet train,
which will be so cool. It goes almost 200 miles an hour. And we'll
have home stays where students sleep on tatami mats, just like
Japanese students."

A few of the kids are learning Japanese, and everybody is picking up
a few words - even if they're words of culinary warning: "Taco" means
"octopus," grimaced one student.

The tour would not be possible without the help of Garfield parents,
whom Tsutakawa considers "incredibly supportive. I feel so fortunate.
Our booster group has raised half the tour costs through
fund-raisers, including an auction, and selling all kinds of stuff,
and having the students play gigs in small ensembles such as quartets
and quintets." The $2,400 price is "pretty reasonable for three weeks
in a very expensive country, including the airfare," Tsutakawa says.

If Garfield's orchestra is one of the Seattle School District's
highest-profile arts group, it's not because of district largesse.

"The school district doesn't give us anything," explains Tsutakawa.

"We have to use booster money in order to purchase music. There's a
couple hundred dollars for the entire music department for a year:
the band, the marching band, the jazz program, everything. That
doesn't go very far. I don't know how my colleagues in other schools
manage. The schools are horribly underfunded; it's quite a complex
issue. The district is trying to raise academic standards, which is
good, but they take money from departments such as the arts, which
are not so required, in order to put more into technology and other
areas. The number of faculty in the arts has gone down.

"That's why I'm so grateful for the supportive parents here. They
want the best for their kids, and they see the benefits of the
orchestra program. They are the ones who keep us going."

Tsutakawa wishes he could take all the students along, not just the
top orchestra. To make sure things are fair, he is privately
auditioning all the orchestra students now, so that students who have
practiced hard and improved can move up.

"It's hard," he confesses.

"I hate to play Mr. Mean Guy. But I have to be as fair as possible.
That's important."

So what advice will the four seniors give to their fellow orchestra
members who are touring for the first time?

"Try everything," says Siple.

"Keep an open mind," says Schirmer.

"Take every opportunity to make friends," says Taylor.

"Give. Talk to people; don't just sit there with your headphones on,"
says McDonald. "What you give, you get back."


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