Students at Lake Forest Elementary School and Idylwild Elementary School are taking up their bows and learning classical violin through The Gainesville Orchestra’s (TGO) mentorship program.
The program, a partnership between TGO and Alachua County Public Schools (ACPS), started at Lake Forest in the 2023-24 school year and expanded this year to Idylwild.
ACPS originally identified four students as possible candidates to receive instruments and instruction from professional TGO musicians for fourth and fifth-grade students.
After a successful first year, in which some students took to the instrument enough to start an after-school club, the program is expanding. TGO mentors will continue to lead classes at Lake Forest on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and are moving into Idylwild on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
The program is funded by donations to TGO, including an anonymous donation to purchase instruments for the students.
Three TGO teachers go to Lake Forest, two to Idylwild, and one fills in as a substitute if any others are unable to make it to class. Pamela Mireles, a professional violinist and member of TGO, said she has noticed that this year’s Lake Forest fifth graders, who participated in the program last year, are more aware of music, respectful, patient and responsible.
“If anything, we’re just going with harder things in the music, because we know now that they understand how much work we have to put into something to get better,” Mireles said in an interview. “Which is something I really like about this. They are learning that hard work brings good rewards at the end of the day.”
Students started out with colored-in pictures of violins on cardboard boxes, with a ruler for the instrument’s neck and a wooden dowel for a bow. That lasted for about a month before their teachers deemed them ready to move to real instruments.
Jessica DuPree, Lake Forest’s music teacher, said her students love to play the violin on the alternate days that TGO mentors come in.
“That excitement of their first day actually touching the violins, and getting the violins and holding the violins is just, I wish I could bottle it up because it was so energetic and exciting for them to be able to play a violin,” DuPree said in an interview.
Though students have taken a general music class since kindergarten, DuPree said for most, this is their first time having lessons on an instrument.
June Xu, a doctoral student in viola performance at UF and a member of TGO, said she is impressed by how quickly students have learned the notes and strings, and by how well-behaved and engaged they are in class.
Students said they like making songs come out of their instruments and learning different genres of music, from intense classical to lullabies and Christmas songs.
“It’s very fun, and you can make songs out of it,” Elizabeth Okeowobradley, a fifth-grade student, said in an interview.
Nova Green, another fifth-grade student, said violin music is special because its tone can change the meaning of music in different songs. Jamari Mobley, another student, agreed.
“Different songs can express when somebody’s feeling something,” Mobley said.
