By Magdalena Stec
Twelve-year-old Rosalie Ball stands in front of a mirror in the middle of a classroom where students practice music.
Her posture seems perfect and she looks relaxed. As she starts singing a Christina Aguilera song, “I Turn to You,” her voice fills the room and is so clear and powerful, it’s hard to believe it belongs to the small-framed girl.
“Open your mouth a little wider, let it out,” says Tony Silvestro, her music teacher, who coaches her from the back of the room for an upcoming recital.
Silvestro is the owner of T’s Music & Arts Academy, which opened on Carling Avenue last November. The private school offers singing, dance, and instrumental lessons, and will likely fill the gap in Centretown’s music community and school music programs.
T’s Music & Arts Academy is one of the several private performing arts schools that’s opened in Ottawa since Ontario’s schools suffered from major cuts to art and music programs in 1997.
Although many of the city’s elementary schools do offer music, the curriculum is limited to instrumental classes, with no singing. Silvestro, who has more than 10 years of musical experience in Ottawa, teaches singing and song writing. That’s why he knows students will likely appreciate the school’s non-competitive, one-on-one classes.
Silvestro’s idea seems to be working. The school now has more than 30 students, with ages ranging from six to 55.
The instructors teach anything from Beethoven to Christina Aguilera, says Silvestro. He says he wants his students to be the best they can be.
“I don’t expect anything else but phenomenal,” he says.
And public schools don’t have enough money to take their students to that level.
Saffron Bianchini, who teaches music at Glashan Intermediate School, says her students suffered from the cuts to music programs.
Ever since the Ottawa Board of Education scrapped the repair budget for the instruments, the schools themselves must come up with that money.
“I can spend $2,000-3,000 a year just on repair. Now I have to generate that, because it’s no longer there,” says Bianchini, who makes up the difference with money from fundraising and student fees.
While instrumental music classes are mandatory at Glashan, Bianchini says not all public schools have music programs. These students are losing out on skill development, working as a team, and “just being able to know the language of music,” she says.
“I think music is an essential, educational tool,” Bianchini says. And for those who are thinking of music as a career, she says that additional, private music classes are necessary.
Rosalie’s been taking vocal classes with Silvestro in addition to the clarinet lessons at her elementary school in Nepean.
“Singing is different,” says her mother, Martine Giroux.
“[Rosalie] became more goal-oriented and definitely better at public speaking. It gives her real life benefits— confidence.”
Even while music education has many benefits, the number of elementary schools employing music teachers has dropped
“Only 40 per cent of all Ontario’s elementary schools had music teachers in 2002-2003,” says Annie Kidder, of People for Education.
“Now only the children of the well-off are able to learn music.”