Striking a chord with students

Accomplished musician takes time out to inspire orchestra at Basic High

Sam Morris

Alpin Hong, the city of Henderson’s artist in residence, assists in an orchestra rehearsal at Basic High School Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2009.

By Emily Richmond (contact)

Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009 | 2 a.m.

Basic High School orchestra rehearsal

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Map of Basic

400 Palo Verde Dr., Henderson

The visiting musician reaches down and plucks the violin and bow from the hands of a student, lifting the instrument to the cradle of his chin and shoulder.

He strokes full, rich notes that fill the orchestra room at Basic High School.

“This is one person on one violin,” concert pianist and guest instructor Alpin Hong says of himself, his voice rising above his own music. “Multiplied by all of you, you know you should be getting a bigger sound.”

He hands back the violin, gives the count and the students, their brows furrowed with renewed effort, try again.

Despite Clark County School District’s budget cuts — including $120 million for the 2009-10 academic year — moments like this still happen.

Principals have some discretion in deciding which programs to cut and which to protect as the district reacts to the first drop in student enrollment in more than 25 years. And they are working hard to preserve the district’s much-lauded music program.

Basic is expected to dodge any fine-arts cuts because it had no enrollment drop. Still, Principal David Bechtel says he’s not satisfied with the status quo. Someday, he says, he hopes to add a mariachi class and a second band teacher.

Research has long shown that students who are involved in fine arts programs typically do better in their academic classes than their peers who don’t take part.

“Those kids are traditionally our best students,” Bechtel said. “We need to give more of them a chance to find something that offers them a creative outlet, a way to get involved.”

And sometimes a guest performer can bring an extra spark into the rehearsal room.

So when city officials called Basic High School to relay Hong’s interest in meeting with high school students before his performance at the Henderson Pavilion, Kelly Bryan, Basic’s new orchestra teacher, jumped at the opportunity for her students to meet the well-known pianist. His appearance would help set the mood and the expectations for the year, Bryan thought.

And then there was even better news: Rather than staying for just the afternoon, Hong offered to help with her classes for an entire week, including preparing the orchestra for a Friday assembly performance.

• • •

By the start of his third day, the students know Hong’s expectations are high.

Bryan hands over conducting duties to Hong, picks up her own violin and takes a seat in the last row.

After successfully navigating the first tune — “Shenandoah” — the group struggles with “Cruella de Vil,” from Disney’s animated classic “101 Dalmatians.”

Hong, 33, instructs the musicians to put down their bows and “sing” each bar of the piece. Again and again, he has them repeat back the notes of the melody and the refrain — first the violins, then the cellos, and finally the bass section.

“Dah da da da da, Dah da da da da …”

Hong moves to the piano and begins to play, adding flourishes and runs as he sings along: “Cruella de Vil, Cruella de Vil …”

Toes tap. Heads bob.

Satisfied that the students have caught both the swinging rhythm and jazzy emotion, he allows them to pick up their bows. And there’s marked improvement.

“I don’t want the tone to be any less full than that,” Hong says. “I don’t care if the notes are wrong, I don’t want them to be any less confident than that.”

For sophomore Caleb Stumbaugh, Hong’s visit is both inspiring and energizing.

“We’re putting so much more life into what we play,” says Stumbaugh, who has played the cello for about five years. “I can hear it and feel it.”

Students are well aware of the budget cuts, he says.

“If they took away sports and music, I would have no motivation to come to school,” said Stumbaugh, who also plays volleyball and runs cross country for Basic. “This is my fun time.”

For Hong, who spent his early childhood in an affluent Michigan suburb, piano lessons started at age 4 at the urging of his mother. He made his professional debut at age 10 with the Kalamazoo Symphony and later won numerous competitions.

When he was 12, his parents were killed in a car wreck. Hong and his younger brother were adopted by their aunt, who raised them in Southern California.

Hong studied medicine at UCLA, planning to follow in the footsteps of his late father, who had been a successful family psychiatrist. But after graduation Hong realized something was missing. He returned to music, earning his master’s degree in piano performance from the Juilliard School in 2001. His Carnegie Hall debut followed the next year.

He now travels the globe giving about 30 concerts per year, and has visited 48 states (a concert in Hawaii in January will make it 49). At each stop, he tries to schedule a visit to a local school and opportunities to work with students.

As a result of those visits, he’s seen firsthand the impact of the economic downturn on the nation’s public schools, where many districts have cut and even abandoned fine arts instruction.

Losing his parents also meant letting go of what had been an idyllic childhood. And Hong was old enough to realize exactly what he had lost.

“I was a very angry kid,” Hong says. “Things had fallen apart for me.”

But music “became my saving grace,” Hong said, helping him deal not only with his parents’ deaths, but also with the normal turbulence of adolescence that followed.

“Even if I was short, skinny, with braces, whatever disastrous things happened to me socially, I felt like there was some core of self-confidence,” Hong says. “No matter what, I was good at something.”

And then there was the instant camaraderie that music education can create.

“If you’re in a band or orchestra, you’re never truly alone,” Hong says. “The worst thing to be, at any age, is lonely.”

There’s no question Clark County’s commitment to its fine arts program sets it apart from other districts, Hong says. And that’s a commitment that will only benefit its students, and the community as a whole, in the long run.

“The reason students should learn music in school isn’t to make them into musicians,” Hong says. “It’s to teach them to listen.”

Discussion: 9 comments so far…

By vsestini

9/23/09 at 7:43 a.m.

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I applaud the fine arts programs in all area schools. Knowledge and participation in the arts is part of the knowledge of civilized man and important to our society.

However, when it comes to cutting programs I think there is far too much emphasis on intermural team sports; not that many students benefit from team sports. Usually it is limited to those with athletic skills not possessed by the majority of the school population.

I remember my own elementary school experience in this district some 60 years ago...if you were not gifted in basketball or baseball the 'coach' set out soccer balls and sent us out to kick it around whileh he concentrated on those who already knew basketball or baseball or had special skills.

For the rest of us,if we were ever invovled in team play, it was play right field so far back that even Mickey Mantle could not hit one to you.... Right field was the drop dead dreaded position for the unathletic, clumsy clodds like myself. If a ball ever came your way you were placed so far back you never could touch it.

I believe the emphais should be on life time sports like: Golf, badmiton, bowling, archery, swimming etc. For schools intramural sports could and should involve a broader range and scope of student atheltic abilities not just those gifted and throwing, dribbling, tackling etc.

How many adults in their 30's to 50's play tackle football?

Would not greater participation in life time individual sports be more beneficial to the health and life of all citizens? Not may high schoolers or college age students are good enough in team sports to make it to the profesisonal level... Our schools need to conserve valuable tax resources and not be the minor league training grounds for professional sports.

In Europe and Asia team sports like soccer, etc are sponsored by communities leagues not schools.
Let's have some common sense and use your tax dollars for real education, academic improvement not frills and fluff of phony athletics in team sports.
By afveteran

9/23/09 at 8:52 a.m.

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Athletics teach lessons that are impossible to receive in other non-academic activities, such as dance, theater, and such. Invaluable lessons such as fair play, team unity, and large group behavior. All that fine arts stuff teaches is how to do things by yourself and for internal gratification. We've got too much of that nonsense going on now, and the liberal leftwing mentality is out of control because of it.
By vsestini

9/23/09 at 9:40 a.m.

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AF VETERAN: If team sports are so valuable then why not change the emphasis to intramural sports leagues in each school; that way every kid has a chance to be on a team and play. As it now stands intermural, i.e. inter school teams, are made up of a very select few who get to be on the team and the other thousands of students get to sit passively in the bleachers and cheer. Let every student be a 'student athlete' in school; maybe some will actually become true 'scholar-athletes' with the ability to complete a sentence without the phrase "you know, man...duhhh you know"

How many more students would benefit from intramural sports within a school? Fair play, unity, and large group behavior are the points you mentioned above would still abound but for all students in a school not the few with better skills at batting, running, passing, dribbling or catching balls....

We are not, nor should we be, in the business of training athletes for the professional leagues. If that is desired, let community teams form with local sponsors like the rich resort-casinos who eventually profit from team sports betting.

How many more students would benefit from the teaching of life time sports in PE instead of team sport emphasis? How many more healthy students, later as healthy adults, would we have if they all had a chance to learn and play: golf, bowling, swimming, badmiton, tennis, bycling,archery, racketball, handball, running, fishing, body building, weight lifting etc? The benefits should be for the the majority not just the select who are physically more skilled in such athletics.
By afveteran

9/23/09 at 2:45 p.m.

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I'm all for the best getting it all.
In athletics, business, etc.
It's called Darwinian Capitalism.
By Ginger_Bruner

9/23/09 at 2:46 p.m.

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AF Veteran: If you think that Music, Theater and Dance don't teach "Invaluable lessons such as fair play, team unity, and large group behavior", you have a very loose grasp on what these endeavors entail. I have played team sports and participated in all of those other 'artistic pursuits'. Even the most mundane musical subject, MARCHING BAND, teaches more about teamwork, fair play and large group behavior than almost any other sport can. Not to mention, it's more physically demanding than you might imagine.
This is to nothing of the teamwork involved in performing in an orchestra, theater or dance production. And you can bet your boots that there is fair play involved. Trying out for the team is just like the audition process.
Also, I have been performing professionally since I was a teen, and have travelled the world because of said artistic pursuits. Tell me how many high school athletes can say the same.
By afveteran

9/24/09 at 7:36 a.m.

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I know of one ex-high school athlete that has: me. And, I've done more than that. Yet, I don't flaunt that.
By Ginger_Bruner

9/24/09 at 3:59 p.m.

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AF Veteran: Your high school sports experience itself did not get you around the world unless you became a professional athlete.
I appreciate that it may have had some positive effect on your adult life, but the point I am making And I believe Ms. Richmond was trying to make) is that no matter how many people believe that all one needs for a well rounded education, Reading, Writing, 'Rithmetic are not enough in this world and that arts education only bolsters said academic subjects. It also makes for a richer life in general.
By afveteran

9/24/09 at 5:14 p.m.

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I don't buy into that. Most fine arts people are leftwing liberal socialists. Most are broke too.
By Ginger_Bruner

9/28/09 at 3:37 p.m.

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not to take readers away from the Sun's lovely website, but here is First Lady Michelle Obama on why the arts are important, especially to children.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/culturem...