The Berks Piano Quartet: A Local Success Story in Education and Service

from Yocum Institute for Arts Education

The quartet is a scholarship ensemble at the Yocum Institute for Arts Education, consisting of four school-age pianists playing eight-hand piano music at two pianos, directed by instructor and music arranger James Neher.

Members are recruited each spring, train during the summer, and perform during the school year. These currently include Freya Cao, an eighth-grader at Veritas Academy, Naomi Tam, a home-schooled ninth-grader, Kevin Ding, a ninth-grader at Wilson High School, and Ethan Zhou, a ninth-grader at Lancaster Country Day School.

The group was launched in September 2011 and has played over 60 concerts in venues throughout the area. A portable piano and amplifier are brought in to allow performance in locations that have one piano. Programs cover a broad range of styles, from symphonic to jazz to patriotic.

The Yocum Institute has discovered that having an ongoing eight-hand keyboard group, a rarity in the U.S., is a powerful force both for community service and for education. For example:

Young people who used to see piano study as a solitary activity become members of a team. Problems are tackled cooperatively and results are spectacular.

Everyone who hears about it is interested. Four pianists at once? Very cool. During the past two recruiting cycles, the director didn’t need to solicit applicants; the young people brought in their friends.

Orchestral and other large-scale pieces normally off-limits to piano students suddenly become feasible, and old favorites win new fans.

Local piano teachers have regularly recommended pupils as candidates, finding they become stronger music lovers and better students.

Some of the group’s strongest audience response comes at assisted living facilities, where memories are triggered of past musical experiences. Residents at one location became so excited that four former church musicians actually formed their own eight-hand piano ensemble, which has given several public concerts.

What began as an experiment has proven to be a fount of community inspiration, as well as fertile leadership training for young people as they prepare for lives of productivity and community service.

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Source: bctv