JOSEPH MCLELLAN
SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON
POST
Thursday, November 26, 1998 ; Page M06
This year's Christmas music began early,
Saturday night at the World Headquarters of Seventh-day Adventist Church in Silver Spring, with a program titled "Holiday Music
Extravaganza" presented by the students, faculty and alumni of the Ottley
Music Studio.
Extravaganza was the right word for a program
that ran well over two hours and presented about 100 performers -- not to
mention the large audience, which sang along lustily in such carols as
"Angels We Have Heard on High," "Go, Tell It on the
Mountain" and "Joy to the World," using texts printed in the
program.
Performers on the stage (as opposed to those
singing along in the beautifully furnished and acoustically excellent
auditorium) ranged from very young beginners to professional-level performers.
The pros included not only the school's
predictably expert faculty members but also quite a few advanced students and
graduates.
The youngest performers, organized into
"orchestras" of about two dozen keyboard instruments, often played
tentatively and made some mistakes, even having to stop and start over at one
point. But they compensated not only with a high level of cuteness but also
with clearly perceptible dedication and determination.
It should be made clear at this point that
the Ottley Studio is definitely dedicated to music -- piano, strings (including
guitar), brass, woodwinds and percussion, as well as harmony, analysis,
ensemble playing, history and sight reading. But music is not the only thing to
which it is dedicated.
One clearly defined purpose of this
institution was powerfully expressed near the end of the program when all of
the students joined together to sing Anthony Q. Richardon's inspiring "I
Can Be," as arranged by the Studio's founder and director, Nevilla Ottley:
"I can be what I want to be. All I do is try a little harder . . . I can
set myself free." When they learn music, these students are learning a lot
more than music.
Recently, American school boards have begun
trimming their budgets, and in cities all across the country, music programs
have been among the first victims. Before then, in educational theory dating
back at least to Plato and including non-Western civilizations as well as those
in Europe and America,
music has been considered an integral and important part of the training of
children.
It may be a coincidence that the decline in
student behavior, the arrival of weapons as a major menace in our schools, the
rise of drug-dealing, gang conflicts and teenage pregnancy have coincided with
the phasing out of musical studies, but Ottley clearly sees a connection, and
her vision is embodied in her school.
While Ottley was getting performers together
for the next number, a statement of her educational philosophy was read by the
master of ceremonies, the Rev. Joseph Daniels Sr. He described music as a way
to give children an alternative to drugs and to hanging out on the street.
"If children are making music," he said, "you know where they
are and what they are doing."
One study after another in recent years has
documented the value of music studies for helping a child improve in other
academic disciplines.
The serious study of music develops self-confidence
and self-discipline, good work habits, ease in concentrating and the ability to
work smoothly with other people. The students in this program showed such
results.
The Ottley Studio was founded in Silver Spring in 1973, and for 14 years it was a
one-woman operation: Ottley teaching private students, with an emphasis on
piano. Then it began to grow, with added students and faculty members, moving
into larger quarters several times until it reached its present home in
Adelphi, two years ago.
Some of its students have already begun, or
are clearly headed for, professional careers in music, as teachers, choir
directors, orchestral players, soloists, etc. And dozens of them have won
prizes in various competitions.
This is good news, of course, but it is not
the best news about the Ottley Studio. The best news is that about 100 young
people, many of whom will never be professional musicians, made music with
poise, self-respect and carefully focused attention Saturday night, displaying
skills and attitudes that will stand by them wherever life may take them.
