library

KTBA Updates Music Library at Rahway High School

RAHWAY, NJ – Thanks to your donations, Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation was able to donate new music literature to the music program at Rahway High School in Rahway, New Jersey! Every music program needs variety in their repertoire to keep students engaged. The musical compositions give students a real-life, applicable opportunity to exercise different technical aspects of their playing. They also expose students to new composers and musical styles. However, it can be difficult to keep up with purchasing new compositions on such small or non-existent budgets for music programs. Fortunately, it only takes one ambitious and passionate music teacher to to bring music to life for those students. The Music Teacher at Rahway High School, Mr. Robert Van Wyk tells us more about his particular music classroom: “My students create a family at our school. We are a performing arts family (bands, choirs, strings, theatre, and dance) that support each other on the stage, in the classroom, and beyond. We are a NJ high school, just outside NYC, servicing a multicultural population of students from varying socioeconomic backgrounds. We strongly believe that the arts can instill positive change, transform, inspire, and change lives.” At Rahway High School, the music program serves as a powerful unifying activity for the students of the school. “We are going to build this program over a strong foundation and proud history and generations of art students,” Mr. Van Wyk explains. “My students are extremely motivated. They are eager and love creating music together. As a department, nine of our seniors have gone on to major in music/performance/musical theatre over the past two years. This collection of music books [would] provide much-needed resources for our classroom library as our students prepare for auditions and develop into achieving, well-rounded performers. These tools [would] support our mission to increase student achievement, spread the importance of arts education in our community, and highlight our student performers as the diverse and dynamic young people that they are.” Thanks to the generous donations from music lovers and Blues fans, KTBA was able to complete the fundraising for Mr. Van Wyk’s music library project. Mr. Van Wyk expresses his gratitude: Dear Keeping The Blues Alive Foundation, Inc., Thank you so much for providing these books for our students. It will be an awesome resource as we continue to grow through this school year and beyond. We are so appreciative of your generosity and kindness towards our Rahway kids. Please follow us @wearerahwayarts so that you can see these tools in action. Thank you! With gratitude, Mr. Van Wyk   Stay tuned for our next Donation of the Week coming up on Friday December 10th, 2021! Thank you for helping us keep the blues alive and keep music education in schools! ____ About Mr. Robert Van Wyk Robert M. Van Wyk has been a music teacher at Rahway High School for the past 25 years. A graduate of the Ithaca College School of Music (BM) and Northwestern University (MM), Mr. Van Wyk has dedicated his professional career to the advancement of the arts and building a quality arts education within the Rahway Public Schools. Mr. Van Wyk is a two time Rahway High School Teacher of the Year. As past Director of the award winning Rahway High School Bands program, Mr. Van Wyk has guided ensembles to numerous awards including two NJ State Championships, students achieving participation in Region and All State level ensembles and selected for numerous performances in Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida. As musical director for the award winning, Rahway High School Musical Theater, Mr. Van Wyk and his ensembles have been nominated for Best Overall Music Direction, Best Chorus, Best Pit Orchestra and Best Overall Musical by the Papermill Playhouse Rising Star Awards. As a professional musician, Mr. Van Wyk has performed with jazz artists such as Phil Woods, Toshiko Akiyoshi, Bucky and John Pizzarelli. He has performed and recorded with Joseph Alessi and Phillip Smith of the New York Philharmonic. Check out Mr. Van Wyk’s last recording with Imperial Brass here. Mr. Van Wyk is a devoted husband of 20 years to Amara Van Wyk (Band Director at the Rahway 7th/8th Grade Academy) and a proud father of two.

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KTBA Gets Lively with New Music Library in Austin, TX!

AUSTIN, TEXAS – Thanks to your donations, Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation donated exciting new literature for the band program at Lively Middle School in Austin, TX! “The band program at my school has a diverse group of students, from within the downtown Austin area, as well as surrounding suburbs,” says Mr. Ryan Thomas, Band Director at Lively Middle School.   “Our magnet program attracts students from all over the district and from different family and cultural backgrounds. I enjoy seeing people from diverse backgrounds work together towards a common goal of creating a great performance or improving on an instrument.” It is this passion and dedication that resonates with the KTBA mission for our grant recipients.  “I love seeing our students’ outlook on their future change in a positive direction because of music. We are a Title 1 school, so many of our students need assistance with instruments, uniforms, and even essentials like backpacks or a good breakfast in the morning. However, once they get an instrument in their hands, they are all on equal footing. Our students start on an instrument for the first time in 6th grade, and we continue to push their development through 7th and 8th grade. Studying music has a huge impact on my students and their whole family,” Mr. Thomas explains. “Music provides a lot more to young learners than entertainment. It teaches discipline, self confidence, problem solving, collaboration, and gives them an emotional outlet stronger than any words. Students at the middle school need all of the above in vast quantity. Teaching music to young band musicians is rewarding because it can fill in whatever is missing from each student’s life, whether they knew they needed it or not.” Selecting music for a group of young musicians is an exercise in differentiation-each piece has to fit the strengths of that year’s group, but also provide an achievable challenge.  “Having a strong music library gives us the options to tailor each year’s curriculum to that group of students and they’re needs. Not just for the year, but within a six weeks. Imagine if you had text books that could change through the year to fit the students. That’s what a band director does by selecting music for their group. The bigger the options in your library, the better experience for everyone. We were looking for funds to help expand our music library and add to it. Individual scores and sheet music are not expensive, but having enough to outfit multiple level groups adds up quickly.” With music budgets being cut around the country, it is becoming increasingly difficult to justify the expense of expanding repertoire for the band program.  Even if teachers could afford a classroom copy of the music, many cannot afford the paper to re-print the music for an entire band program.  As a result of the lack of variety, students become bored with the drills and proficiency lessons. In their defense, the goal of proficiency is to execute it in literature – literature that is expensive and hard to come by, especially for Title I schools with little or no music budget. Thanks to the generosity of Joe Bonamassa fans and music lovers like yourselves, Keeping the Blues Alive Foundation was able to procure the music needed for Mr. Thomas’s band program. Now, he can focus on delegating parts and even using them as audition material for future band students. Keeping the Blues Alive is a 501c3 organization that makes a donation to a school in need of music instruments, supplies, sheet music, and more every week! Your donations help us keep music in schools, while preserving blues heritage. In order to keep the ball rolling, we appreciate your donations to keep music education funding alive in schools across the country. If you would like to help us to continue to make an impact on music education in America, click here to make a donation! All donations are fully tax-deductible and go to a GREAT cause! Thank you for supporting music education for the next generation!

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