The Empire State Youth Orchestra’s CHIME program in Schenectady meets daily and provides free instruments and music lessons to its students to ensure it remains affordable. The program is celebrating its 10-year anniversary with a free concert at Proctors in Schenectady.
Ayden Chrisman, a senior at Schenectady High School, has played violin in the CHIME program since its inception a decade ago.
“We're all doing the same thing, no matter where we're coming from. We all share one common goal, which is music empowerment, and it's very fun. I've, I've grown a lot into this community, and I think that this program, along as ESYO as a whole, impacts this community a lot. There's definitely a lot of kids in my school who know what CHIME is, who's either been in CHIME before, who is currently in CHIME, or who hasn't been in CHIME at all. So, yeah, it's very impactful, this community," said Chrisman.
CHIME was inspired by El Sistema, a global music education program with a goal to keep kids off the streets by putting instruments in their hands. Capital Region students have participated in El Sistema music festivals in Los Angeles and Edinburgh, Scotland.
Chrisman has been a part of many of those opportunities and says CHIME has guided much of his plans for the future. He will be attending The Hartt School at the University of Hartford in the fall.
“Yes, so I was going in for music education, but I switched it a little bit, so I'm going for music performance, and there's a five-year Suzuki pedagogy program, which is, it's kind of like music education, but it's like a different program. So, after five years at University of Hartford, I will have a master's degree in performance, I believe, and a Suzuki pedagogy emphasis on my degree," said Chrisman.
Every year, CHIME students participate in a program-wide residency called Amplify Our Voice in which they produce an original score that is typically showcased at their spring concert. This year’s piece is called The Earth is OG.
Zoe Auerbach, CHIME director, explains the process:
“it's a year long project that really asks the question, what's important to the young people in our program? What are they caring about? What's feeling like it's really top of mind for them. So we start with a lot of conversations and a lot of writing and chatting, and we, it develops into music making some improvisation, a lot of what we call collective composition, which is coming up with ideas in a group and kind of working, workshopping them all together, and then joining with other members of other groups and really creating a piece out of the material that material," said Auerbach.
Percussionist Mia Montross, a junior at Schenectady High School, shared her experience with the program.
“Just our, you know, our snack breaks, our dinners, everything that we do in CHIME. It's not just about, you know, musical excellence. They definitely stress friendships and community. I've made lifelong relationships and friends that I've worked with forever. You know, a lot of people, they have siblings in CHIME, so it's definitely an aspect of family, whether it's your own sibling or just the people you meet in CHIME. Everyone who you play with, it's all everyone is on the same level, whether you've been playing for 10 years or two. Everyone plays together, and I think that CHIME really, really stresses that, that music isn't a competition, it's just about making it together," said Montross.
The program is rapidly growing with a current waitlist of over 100 students. Auerbach says she hopes ESYO’s new Scotia-based campus will enable CHIME to admit as many students as possible and open up beyond Schenectady.
The 10-year anniversary performance begins at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 27th, at Proctors.