"If Love Is Deep Much Can Be Accomplished" Suzuki Plus Benaroya And Chihuly

 We went to a recital that two of the boys played in yesterday at Benaroya Hall.  Not being from Seattle, I had to look him up to find out who he was.  (And since I'm really crunched for time, I'm settling for the Wikipedia bio instead of looking for something better.)

Jack A. Benaroya (July 11, 1921 – May 11, 2012) was a noted philanthropist and prominent civic leader in Seattle, Washington. He supported cultural, educational, and medical groups, with his donations. He attended Seattle's Garfield High School. He was a former director of the Seattle Chamber of Commerce and the United Way of King County (Seattle).
The largest commercial real estate developer in the state of Washington, Benaroya established the family-owned Benaroya Company in 1956. In 1984, the company turned its focus to venture capital investments and philanthropic endeavors. Noted major donations include:

• Benaroya Hall, Seattle, Washington — facility for the Seattle Symphony; opened in 1998
• Benaroya Research Institute, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle; opened in 1999

Benaroya was a supporter of:

• Juvenile Diabetes Foundation International
• The University of Washington Medical Center
• Children's Hospital and Medical Center, Lakeside School
• The Jewish Federation and Council of Seattle

Benaroya was an early investor in Starbucks. (Wikipedia)

This was a Suzuki recital with pianists, violinists, a violist, and a couple of cellists.  Probably around 80-90 kids altogether from four years old to 18.






From The Suzuki Association of the Americas:

"Shinichi Suzuki, the man who developed the Suzuki Method, was born on October 17, 1898, in Nagoya, Japan. He was one of twelve children and his father owned a violin factory. Shinichi and his brothers and sisters played near the factory and saw instruments being made, but the children never realized what beautiful sounds could come from a violin. When he was seventeen, Shinichi heard a recording of Schubert’s Ave Maria, played by a famous violinist named Mischa Elman. He was amazed that a violin could make such a beautiful tone because he had thought it was just a toy!

After this, Shinichi brought a violin home from the factory and taught himself to play. He would listen to a recording and try to imitate what he heard. A few years later he took violin lessons from a teacher in Tokyo. Then, when he was 22 years old, he went to Germany and studied with a famous teacher named Karl Klingler. Shinichi also met his wife Waltraud in Germany. They married and moved back to Japan, where he began to teach violin and play string quartet concerts with his brothers."

If love is deep - from the program

Here's a bit about the method from a different page on the Suzuki association website:

"More than fifty years ago, Japanese violinist Shinichi Suzuki realized the implications of the fact that children the world over learn to speak their native language with ease. He began to apply the basic principles of language acquisition to the learning of music, and called his method the mother-tongue approach. The ideas of parent responsibility, loving encouragement, constant repetition, etc., are some of the special features of the Suzuki approach.

Parent Involvement

As when a child learns to talk, parents are involved in the musical learning of their child. They attend lessons with the child and serve as “home teachers” during the week. One parent often learns to play before the child, so that s/he understands what the child is expected to do. Parents work with the teacher to create an enjoyable learning environment.

The other principles listed (each has more description) include:

• Early Beginning

• Listening

• Repetition

• Encouragement

• Learning with Other Children

• Graded Repertoire  (The description suggests this means steps not evaluation.)
  
• Delayed Reading.
  
  

This system must work, because the music was really good. 



I also noticed in the Bill and Melinda Gates Lobby this gigantic Chihuly chandelier.

 

To get a sense of the size, you can see it in context in the lobby in the lower right of the picture. From that angle it looks a little like a champagne glass.  

Born in 1941 in Tacoma, Washington, Dale Chihuly was introduced to glass while studying interior design at the University of Washington. After graduating in 1965, Chihuly enrolled in the first glass program in the country, at the University of Wisconsin. He continued his studies at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where he later established the glass program and taught for more than a decade.
In 1968, after receiving a Fulbright Fellowship, he went to work at the Venini glass factory in Venice. There he observed the team approach to blowing glass, which is critical to the way he works today. In 1971, Chihuly cofounded Pilchuck Glass School in Washington State. With this international glass center, Chihuly has led the avant-garde in the development of glass as a fine art.
His work is included in more than 200 hundred museum collections worldwide. He has been the recipient of many awards, including eleven honorary doctorates and two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts. (There's a lot more where this came from on the Chihuly website.)