Happy New Year!

December update! 

After school closed for the holidays, we returned to the US to share the message of ESK more broadly. We were incredibly fortunate to receive kind donations from several individuals and organizations, including Meyer Music in Grand Rapids, the People to People Project in Pennsylvania, and the Fieldston School in New York City.  

Each donated several violins and violas, meaning we increased our instruments from 8 to 26! We were equally fortunate to have a number of friends traveling from the US to Kenya in January, meaning we were able to bring back all of our instruments without additional cost. 

Growing by leaps and bounds: January and February

Once school resumed in January, we were able to welcome another 36 students to our program, bringing us to a total of 60 young musicians. By mid-February several of our first students were advanced enough to become “helpers,” teaching the beginners.  This has been a big help and will enable us to grow even faster, once we have more instruments. 

Because of the speed of our students’ progress and the success of our first concert, we have now been invited to perform at other schools, churches, and community centers around Nairobi. In March, we expect 3 concerts, with one coming up at Moi Avenue Primary tomorrow afternoon! 

We also received more great news in February: the Martyn Donaldson Trust in the UK decided to donate $750 to help us grow. This means we can purchase our first cellos, which we are very excited about.

Students from our new groups started in January

Looking forward

We’re more excited than ever to grow our program in 2015. We’ve already been approached by teachers in our Primary School, who say that over 200 students have asked if they can take part in our program. We also have been approached by several other schools and organizations in Nairobi about setting up new programs. 

Our new goal is to find a source for more used instruments, so we can expand to more children. All our teachers are volunteering, so our expenses currently remain low. Once we receive another 30 instruments, we will reach enough students to approach larger organizations to provide longer-term funding. This will allow us to pay ourselves and give ESK the ability to expand and set a foundation for future.   If you are interested in helping to fund El Sistema Kenya, this will go a long ways towards helping us expand our program beyond Kawangware to other areas in Nairobi and across the country, spreading the joy of music and creating positive change in these communities.

Thanks again for all your support and please let us know if you are ever in Kenya and able to see us in action!

She Is Nairobi

Mumbi Mbugua, one of our teachers in training for El Sistema Kenya, was recently featured in She Is Nairobi, a celebration of the inspiring women that are changing the face of the city of Nairobi. #SheIsNairobi presents real Nairobi women; intellectuals, creatives, entrepreneurs, volunteers, wage earners. What they share in common is that each is making a difference to this city. Mumbi is definitely making a difference in the lives of our children in Kawangware!

Mumbi Mbugua

Finishing up the school year in Kawangware

Last week we had our last music class of the year at Kawangware Primary School.  Here in Kenya, the school year ends much sooner than in other parts of the world in anticipation of the December holidays.  Our students have come a long way from our first class in mid-September.  In six weeks, they tackled the basics of violin playing and all have learned the Twinkle Variations and performed them to an audience of over 1500!

We are looking forward to meeting with them again in January and are hoping to have more instruments to bring back to them so that we can reach even more children.  Currently, we have 24 learning the violin and have split them into three groups of eight to compensate for the working instruments that we have.

Karis Crawford will be in the States this December, and if you have any instruments that you would like to donate or any other means of support, please get in touch with her at info@elsistemakenya.org so that she can bring them back to Nairobi in January 2015.

Thank you all so much for your continued support, and we look forward to the new year!

Our First Concert!

Our projected numbers for our first concert were at maximum an audience of 200.  We were quite surprised when 1,500 children, teachers and parents showed up to Kawangware Primary School to listen to what we had learned in the past six weeks!  We performed the Twinkle Variations with each group and everyone played very well.  Although we haven't taught the children Twinkle yet or even told them that these were variations based on Twinkle, most of them had figured out how to play Twinkle by themselves and were practicing it before the concert.  We are looking forward to formally introducing Twinkle next week and incorporating the games they have been playing with the "whisper tube" to the long straight bows required for this new piece.  We are very proud of our children and how far they have come in just six short weeks.  This was a wonderful performance and the first time they had all played a musical instrument in front of a formal audience!

Asanteni sana watoto!

 Warming up in the storage room

Ready to play!

A Successful First Week with Eric Booth!

The first week of El Sistema Kenya kicked off on September 15 with 24 young students.  We had a great time playing games and learning the parts of the violin and viola, learning how to make a proper bowhold and how to hold the instruments in play position and rest position.  This week, after several days of learning "secret handshakes," we finally put the bow to the string and everyone was able to play "Mississippi Hot Dog" on the E and A string.

Last Friday, we also had a special visitor: Eric Booth!  Eric is the originator of the term "teaching artist" and taught for many years at Julliard, as well as enjoying a prolific acting, writing and teaching career.  An avid supporter of the arts, Eric has been traveling the globe researching different El Sistema projects around the world, and we had the privilege of hosting him in our first week.  Although Eric doesn't play any instruments, he sat with the students and learned how to hold a bow!

Karis Crawford, Eric Booth and Mumbi Mbugua in Kawangware, Nairobi

Launch Week Update

We are excited to announce that we will begin teaching 24 young people in Kawangware this coming Monday!  We had hundreds of children who wanted to be involved, but we are limited on how many instruments we have at this moment.  Yesterday, Bernadette and Karis met with the students and their parents, who are very supportive of the project.  A few parents gave very touching speeches on how they wished they had the opportunity to learn music and told us that we had their full support.  We can't wait to start teaching on Monday!

Launch Week Preparations

This week we are very excited to meet the children we will be teaching in Kawangware.  The Kawangware Primary School has helped El Sistema Kenya select a pilot group of 20 children in Class 5 and Class 6 who will be joined by 30 other children in January 2015.  We will be meeting with these children and their parents to talk about the program and answer any questions they may have.  This is a very busy time of year for Kenyan schools as most students have begun preparations for national exams and we have tried to be sensitive to timetabling music classes alongside the exams in order to include as many students as possible.

We are also starting our Suzuki teachers in training masterclasses this week with our four trainees, Etta, Bernadette, Mumbi, and Papa.  The teachers in training will learn how to teach using the Suzuki Method with all of the stringed instruments and will be assisting with teaching during the week as we start classes in Kawangware.