The Willow Oaks Choir performs at Stanford: From left: Jakelin Rivera Hernandez, Itzel Villa, Kalonnie Bridges, Adan Quintero, Nehumi Tuulakitau and Edwin Sanchez. Photo credit: Fannie Watkinson
They started with vocal warm-ups but soon warmed the hearts of the crowd. On Thursday evening, at the Braun Music Center, six students from Willow Oaks Middle School in Menlo Park presented their debut concert as the Willow Oaks Choir. KALONNIE BRIDGES, JAKELIN RIVERA HERNANDEZ, ADAN QUINTERO, EDWIN SANCHEZ, NEHUMI TUULAKITAU and ITZEL VILLA performed a Welsh lullaby, a traditional German song and a Michael Jackson tune. They were joined by members of the Stanford Chamber Chorale for a rendition of the gospel song “Down by the Riverside.”
The Willow Oaks singers were formed just two months ago by JACOB BOEHM, a member of the Stanford chorale and a senior majoring in music.
In the printed event program, Boehm laid out the impetus for starting the choir.
“Willow Oaks is a school with no music program. It is one of the many schools plagued with budget cuts and an emphasis on test taking. In California, only 24 percent of middle school students and 14 percent of high school students received music education in 2007. In the past dozen years, California has reduced the number of music teachers by more than 1000. Programs like the California Arts Council’s Arts in Education and Artist-in-Residence programs, formerly funded at more than $10 million annually, now have less than $1 million in funding. These reductions are astounding considering the proven positive effects of music education, including higher retention, higher test scores and mental acuity,” the program note said.
During the first half of the eight–week middle-school program, Boehm introduced a new song each week, and each new song provided students an opportunity to try a different musical concept, such as singing in a round, performing a solo, or tackling a song in a foreign language.
Following Thursday’s music program, which featured alternating performances by the Willow Oaks group and the Stanford Chorale, led by music Professor STEVEN SANO, the two singing groups were joined by Stanford faculty for an exchange of ideas and questions. The faculty included music professors HEATHER HADLOCK and MARK APPLEBAUM, STEWART LEVIN, geophysics, and DIANE FRANK, dance.
The Stanford students talked about their career plans: law school, travel, professor of particle physics.
“Is it true that if you go to college you can pick the times you go to class?” one of the Willow Oaks students asked.
Stanford senior Jacob Boehm, left, rehearses with Nehumi Tuulakitau. Photo credit:Fannie Watkinson
“Nobody makes you go to class but if you don’t go to class you can fall behind,” Levin advised.
“Being a student is something you might want to do forever,” Applebaum said. He admitted that that might “sound miserable” from a middle-school perspective, but that one of the exciting things about being a professor at Stanford is learning from his students. “It’s a two-way street. We’re students for life.”
Asked by one of the Willow Oaks parents how the experience had changed the middle-schoolers’ perspectives. Sanchez said that he initially thought singing was for girls, but soon realized that he liked to sing and to appreciate the music “When I hear Jacob singing, it calms me down,” he said.
Boehm’s name might be familiar to some readers. Last summer, he became the poster child for the power of social media while he was traveling in Malaysia and went off the grid. Worried friends and family members used an international network of Facebook postings and Tweets to track him down.
Answering the question about his plans after graduation, Boehm said his include travel to Greece, where he will practice another of his passions – lighting design – in a touring production of Wanderings of Odysseus.
“I’ll stay there till someone gets worried again,” he quipped, to which a fellow Stanford student called out, “Keep your cell phone on.”
For now, though, Boehm urged members of the audience to do what they can to support music in the schools.
And if anyone needed a reason to do so, Tuulakitau said it best. The Willow Oaks Choir, the seventh grader said, “changed my life a lot.”
- ELAINE RAY
