This article is copied from the Boston Globe.

   Instruments lie mute in city school storage
   By Beth Daley, Globe Staff, 02/01/99

   More than 1,200 violins, trumpets, cellos, flutes, and French horns sit
   unused in a Boston public school warehouse and various school closets,
   with few teachers even aware that they exist.

   Many of the instruments have rotted in the eight years since funding
   for instrumental music instruction was eliminated from the city's school
   budget.  But as music education creeps back into Boston students' school
   day, and into new after-school programs, teachers and principals say
   there must be a way to get the instruments into the hands of students.

   "I didn't know they were there.  I thought all the instruments were
   dumped," said Joseph Lee, principal of Gavin Middle School in South
   Boston.  "I've been trying to get my hands on instruments for our
   after-school program.  That's always been the stumbling block."

   Gavin said some schools have arrangements with performing arts programs
   so that music teachers are available before or after school, but the
   lack of instruments has been a problem.

   The inventory gathering dust, according to the School Department,
   includes 350 violins, 89 ukuleles, eight harps, and dozens of trumpets,
   violas, clarinets, drums, and flutes.  About 600 of the instruments are
   in a Dorchester warehouse; the others are scattered throughout the
   system.

   "We have all these instruments just sitting on a shelf getting
   rusty," said Rosebud Holland, a music teacher at the Trotter School in
   Dorchester.  Despite the lack of city funding, Holland has taken it upon
   herself to give students piano and recorder lessons during school hours.

   If students are fortunate enough to have a teacher who is willing to
   donate time for such instruction, and they are aware of the cache of
   instruments, students can rent them for $30 a year.

   But unless a teacher elects individually to teach instrumental music
   free, it doesn't get taught.

   The only instrumental music program in the system is the Roland Hayes
   Division of Music at Madison Park High in Roxbury, and the new Boston
   Arts Academy, for which students must audition.  Some instrumental
   programs also exist at Latin and Latin Academy, but few elementary or
   middle schools have them.

   In contrast, suburban systems such as Amesbury, Brookline, and Woburn
   regularly offer instrument instruction to students beginning in fourth
   grade.  Almost all have concert bands, orchestras, and marching bands -
   things of the past in Boston.

   To some in the system, the stash of unused instruments represents a
   bureaucratic disaster in which students who could benefit from music
   instruction never receive it.

   But school officials say the problem is one of money and management:
   They can't ask teachers to teach instrumental music free.

   They also worry the instruments could get lost or stolen if there is no
   organized system for doling them out.

   "We're trying to let people know about the instruments," said Murphy
   Lewis, who oversees music programs for city schools.  "My concern is
   that in a city where music education began in the country, students
   are not getting what they need."

   Lowell Mason, who arranged the Christmas carol "Joy to the World,"
   started the nation's first public school music education in the
   now-defunct Hawes Elementary School in Boston in 1837, The idea
   spread to communities throughout the country, Lewis said.

   In 1995, the Boston School Committee adopted an Arts in Education
   policy designed to reintroduce music instruction into every school.
   But the music education it provides for is largely based on exposure
   to music, not learning instruments.

   While that is worthwhile, teachers say, it does not teach them a
   specific skill that will stay with them through life.

   Ideally, Lewis said, he wants at least 15 instrumental music teachers
   to be hired to travel from school to school.  Lewis wants students
   at least to use the instruments in storage.

   While about 600 of the instruments were checked out of the warehouse
   last year by teachers volunteering instruction, this year only 248
   instruments have been borrowed.  Lewis said he has sent out e-mails to
   teachers letting them know the instruments are available.  But many
   teachers new to the system said they were unaware.

   "One of the biggest atrocities in this system is that musical education
   has been cut back," said Angelo Giacalone, principal of the Clapp
   Elementary School in Dorchester.

   "But you really need people hired who are capable to teach.  It's
   like having a computer, but unless you know how to teach using it,
   it's no good," he said.

   This story ran on page A01 of the Boston Globe on 02/01/99.
    Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company.

Mimi Ezust