Maine Motif Issue 2, Vol. II (Winter, 2018) | Page 29
Where Purpose Meets Passion
AN INTERVIEW WITH MALCOLM W. ROWELL, JR.
By Thomas Lizotte
“The primary purpose of Music in our schools is to EDUCATE THE SOUL! The value
and benefit of music lies in its ability to nourish the desert of our souls”, says Malcolm
W. Rowell, Jr.
“Art is not a thing; Art is a way,” says Robert Henri,
author of ART IS A WAY OF LIFE. Art is a spiritual
journey implying that to know something is to have a
relationship with it……thus ownership. The legendary
maestro/educator Robert Shaw expresses it this way:
“Great art illuminates and enlightens our humanity.” Art
teaches us what it means to be human.
Rowell has had a storied 50 year career in music
education that included the United States Military
Academy Band at West Point; public school education in
Springfield, Vermont; Music Director, Metropolitan
Wind Symphony of Boston; Visiting Artist with the
Boston University Wind Ensemble; Artistic Director of
the South Shore Conservatory (Hingham, MA) Summer
Music Festival; Music Director and founder of the
Massachusetts Wind Orchestra; and for 23 years,
Director of Bands and Professor of Music at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Throughout his career he has remained a thoughtful and influential proponent for
school music programs, the ‘silent’ art of conducting, quality literature, creative
programming, artistic integrity and lifelong growth musically and personally.
“Central to the creative experience is one’s ability to lead musicians and audiences to an
understanding of the expressive, emotional and aesthetic content of a composition”,
Rowell said. This, of course, is central to one’s role as artist, musician, educator,
conductor. Artist/teachers engage in what we call ‘creative interplay' ….. mutual
listening and collaboration. It is drawing the ultimate potential out of each player, thus
the realization of one’s creative voice.