Venezuelan program hits right notes in BR

• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Mar 26, 2009 - Page: 1B

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After school these days, visitors to the auditorium at Children’s Charter School near downtown Baton Rouge can hear the sounds of violins and, if they’re lucky, a recognizable song.

The truly lucky people, though, are the 22 students being taught by professional musicians with the Baton Rouge Symphony Orchestra.

The program is small. Three violinists teach the children once or twice a week, funded for one year by grants from Baton Rouge city-parish government and the Louisiana Division of the Arts.

With that seed money running out, orchestra spokesman Ron Bermingham said, his organization is seeking grants to continue and expand the program to more students and more schools.

The participating children at this charter school have some sense they are participating in something special.

“They said we’re the smartest kids in the school, so they chose us,” said a proud Kristian Gray, 9.

The children have to keep up their grades in order to take part, and already a few students let their grades slip and had to drop out.

“The idea is to make these kids into leaders and mentors for the next batch of kids,” said Raul Gomez, one of the three violinists teaching at the school.

Greg Brandao, interim principal at Children’s Charter and former principal of Catholic High School, said too few elementary schools offer such music instruction, and he thinks it’s bound to have at least some benefit for the participating children.

“My children obviously went to Catholic schools, and they weren’t exposed to anything like that,” Brandao said. “I think it’s good for any school.”

The orchestra chose Children’s Charter School because it works primarily with children who live in poverty.

“We wanted to go to the other side of Baton Rouge,” said Bermingham, who serves as the orchestra’s director of artistic operations, education and community engagement.

On March 19, Gomez and fellow violinists Isabel Escalante and Joanna Steinhauser walked the children through “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.”