Musical
A life-changing chance
for amateur players is
booming after five years.
By Christianna McCausland
Keyone Swain
Keyone Swain is 34 years old. He lives in Baltimore City and works
at the Social Security Administration. But for one glorious moment
in June, he played principal trombone at the Joseph Meyerhoff
Symphony Hall. The self-taught musician participated in the 2014
BSO Academy Week, one of the largest and most intensive programs
created and run by the BSO. The week-long, immersive summer
program gives amateur adult musicians like Swain the opportunity
to perform alongside a top professional orchestra.
This was Swain’s fourth year in the program. He initially stumbled across it when
he was searching the performance schedule
on the BSO’s website. Swain taught himself to play the trombone when he was 17
and has played in a number of bands and
community orchestras, but he leapt at the
chance to participate in the Academy.
“I love the fact that I get to play really
tough music,” he says. “The level to which
we play with the BSO is far more intense
than what you can do with any community orchestra.”
The BSO Academy launched in 2010,
evolving out of the symphony’s iconic onenight “Rusty Musicians” program.
“We were looking for an opportunity to
share some of the really exciting resources
we have here at the BSO and connect the
community with the BSO musicians,” says
10 O v ertur e |
www. bsomusic .org
Annemarie Guzy, BSO director of education. “One participant described it as sitting
in and being part of a master painting.”
Programs within the Academy continuously expand: This year launched the
Music Educators Academy, which gave
teachers the side-by-side performance
opportunity of the Academy as well as a
program of study with expert faculty to
improve relevant skills like musicianship,
conducting and arranging. Participants
★
★★
The BSO Academy launched
in 2010, evolving out
of the symphony’s iconic
one-night “Rusty
Musicians” program.
could obtain three graduate credits
through the University of Maryland,
Baltimore County.
“We’ve worked for so long with music
educators here, and we noticed how thinly
stretched they’d become,” Guzy explains.
“They’re required to be experts on an array of instruments in addition to their
own, they have to sing and conduct—
all these things they may not have had
in their training to become an educator.
This is a week for them to harness their
skills again and get a chance to really play
their own instruments.”
Kristin Gomez, a 53-year-old elementary school strings instructor with Arlington Public Schools in Virginia, has taught
for 22 years. She’s played the viola since
fourth grade, but the Music Educators
Academy helped reconnect her to her instrument and brought back great memories of playing in an orchestra. It also
provided a rigorous curriculum. She found
the conducting workshop led by Case
Scaglione, assistant conductor of the New
York Philharmonic, particularly helpful.
Gomez says she frequently conducts,
often in front of her peers, parents, or
maybe even a superintendent.