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July was packed with excitement as the students finally performed in their first LIVE performance outside of Newark in over 18 months. The "Piano Bus" helped bring music camp to over 100 students in neighborhoods all around Newark. The enthusiasm of the high school volunteers working alongside our staff brought us new energy and hope, and I am thankful for all of you who helped make this magical summer happen!
Jee-Hoon Krska, Executive Director
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Crossing Borders with Music
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Written by Anusha Iyer, K2S high school volunteer
A historic collaboration that crossed borders in age, race, experience, and backgrounds took place at the Madison Community Arts Center in Madison, New Jersey between Keys 2 Success (K2S) and The Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey (BONJ) on July 18th, 2021. Over 200 people over-flowed the hall, as many stood outside the doors to get a chance to watch the live concert featuring 4 Keys students and 2 Keys staff members with the Baroque Orchestra performing “Variations on Simple Gifts” and “Lift Every Voice and Sing”.
“Music can bring all kinds of people together...there’s something about it; when you sit down and make music together, we’re all united,” expressed Maestro Robert Butts, the executive director of BONJ and organizer of the concert. Maestro Butts should know. As a seasoned conductor, composer, and educator, whose works have been performed around the world, he has enjoyed many unlikely friendships spanning from Asia to Europe.
This particular performance grew out of the serendipitous friendship between Maestro Butts and Elijah Souels, K2S staff and composer-in-residence, who was born and raised in Newark. The two men first met on Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic when Maestro Butts proposed the idea of co-composing “Variations on Simple Gifts” with Elijah. (The original plan was for Maestro Butts to compose the piece alone for the Keys 2 Success students and orchestra).
Maestro Butts spoke about the collaborative process between himself and Mr. Souels, saying, “I mainly composed the music for the orchestra while Elijah wrote the music for the K2S students. We worked together to create some variations - probably close to 5 or 6 in total. Elijah, at one point, changed the bass line and that slight change almost made it a whole new piece.” The collaboration between the two musicians brought together two distinct worlds of ideas. “Arranging a piece over Zoom is difficult, and you definitely need to be able to trust the expertise of your partner,” Mr. Souels mentioned.
The collaboration which began with two men quickly grew into more. After completing “Variations on Simple Gifts”, Elijah was commissioned to compose an arrangement of “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, also known as the Black National Anthem. This time, it was up to Elijah to pass on the gift of collaboration. He invited Ms. Saki Uehtehara, a gifted arranger, to co-compose the string part for the piece. Ms. Uehtehara put her expert knowledge of string instruments and her imagination to work to create the orchestration based on Mr. Souels’ original piano arrangement and harmonies. Samvit Singhal, a high-school volunteer with Keys 2 Success was invited to be the editor for the whole piece.
Once again, Mr. Souels turned to his friend, Maestro Butts, to premier this piece. Saki’s husband, Héctor Falcón, a Juilliard trained violinist, joined in and played the 1st violin part with bravura. K2S faculty - Seraphina Taylor, a talented Afro-Latina high-school pianist attending the Academy for Performing Arts in New Jersey and Elijah Soules - shared a virtuosic duet piano cadenza.
“Live performances are so different. It was so cathartic to hear the whole orchestra playing along with the pianos. Playing alongside other musicians felt wonderful. I was able to just focus on the beauty of the arrangement and richness of all the sounds blending together,” said Ms. Taylor. The performance was, as Mr. Souels calls it, “ear candy” - a certain combination of harmonies that make your ears want to explode.
Ms. Krska shared her insights about the collaboration. “This is quite the ground-breaking collaboration. You’re seeing musicians of all races and ages - from 10 to 70 - work side by side with each other in friendship and with the utmost respect for one another. Everyone was eager to learn something new from the other. My hope is for this to become the norm - musicians who reflect the diversity of our communities playing together, creating beauty, and forming new friendships.”
The Baroque Orchestra of New Jersey was founded in 1996 by Maestro Robert Butts who has developed it into New Jersey’s leading collaborative ensemble. Maestro Butts was named Artist of the Year by the New York Classical Music Society. His compositions have been performed across Europe and Asia, and have been featured on broadcasts of Performance Today on WQXR. To learn more, visit https://baroqueorchestra.org/
Anusha Iyer is a rising sophomore attending the Academy for Information Technology. Although she excels in STEM, she also has a passion for writing. These divergent talents have made Anusha an invaluable addition to the Keys 2 Success team. In addition to writing press releases and newsletter articles, Ms. Iyer is part of the K2S Fundraising team. This summer, she is passing along her love of writing to our students by helping our students write their own stories during the online summer camp. Stay tuned for these wonderful creations!
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Summer Camp Personal Reflection
Ella Platts
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Written by Ella Platts, K2S high school volunteer
This year’s Keys 2 Success summer camp started off with me whizzing down the streets of Newark with a ball of anxiety and also excitement in my stomach. It was to be my first day of a month full of new experiences.
My main goal going into this camp was to provide kids with a fun summer! I wanted our art classes to be a place where they could have a good time being creative and hopefully learning as well. When planning out the lessons, we wanted to incorporate technical art concepts like color theory and principles of design into the crafts. In the end, not only did the kids learn about the educational side of art, but I also learned about conveying these concepts.
At times, teaching young children is challenging as it’s hard to gauge their understanding. I had to remind myself that something that may be simple to me, may be very difficult for the children to understand. I helped teach the color theory week. Our lessons involved explaining concepts like complementary colors, and then implementing that lesson into a craft project. Some kids got it easily, others needed more explaining but ultimately everyone was able to do it by the end.
In the future, I want to experiment with constructing lessons that stray away from directly explaining the concept to the kids, and instead focus more on teaching the lesson in a way where they come to the conclusion themselves. When teaching complementary colors, instead of telling them which ones are complementary, we would guide them with questions and pictures and examples to come up with the complementary colors themselves. Asking questions like what’s your favorite color? What color does your favorite color pair well with? Why do you think that is? What color does your favorite color not pair well with? Questions like these could cause students to really think about the way colors interact with each other, and I believe teaching in this way would make these concepts easier for kids to understand.
When I think about the highlights of this week, and the moments that will stick in my brain for a very long time, I think about the conversations I’ve had with the kids. While they worked on their drawings, they told me about themselves and their lives, about siblings and hobbies. As someone who is quite shy, I know the strength it takes to open up to people you don’t know very well, so it feels extremely special to know that the students trust me enough to tell me about themselves. Throughout these conversations, one thing that stood out to me was how universal some experiences are regardless of age or where you grew up. Experiences like being afraid to start a new grade, feeling like you’re not a good artist, or being scared to try something new because you’re scared of messing up. These are just a few examples from these conversations, but these are experiences that almost everyone has been through, including myself. Even simple childhood crafts like origami fortune tellers span generations.
Our prompts were relatively simple and open ended, so I loved seeing all the different ideas the students came up with. Some of the artwork was so creative and out-of-the-box that it blew my mind. I had one student, Angelo, who showed us some of his artwork that he did outside of class during one of our online lessons, and that moment stuck with me because it’s such a wonderful feeling to know that the kids trust you. Almost all the kids shared their pieces with us at the end of class, and because artwork can be so personal, I admired the courage they displayed. Even the students that lacked confidence in their art at the beginning were able to create pieces they were proud of in the end.
Overall, Keys 2 Success’s summer camp was such an exciting experience and I hope to see some familiar faces at next year’s camp!
Ella Platts is a rising high school junior studying graphic design and industrial design. She joined Keys 2 Success in 2021 through the Pen Pal program and is currently a volunteer with the Fundraising Committee, where she applies her artistic talents to creating digital content. Her interests include reading, writing, drawing, and historical sewing. Ella believes that every child should have opportunities in the arts, in order for them to foster their imagination and creativity.
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Charlene Burgess Staff Spotlight
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Written by Ashley Molina, K2S high school intern
The very nature of Keys 2 Success brings in people of several different backgrounds. Each of our staff has their own experience with the values that Keys 2 Success preaches. Charlene Burgess (Ms. B, as the students call her) is one such individual.
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Every staff member at Keys 2 Success could say that Ms. Burgess in some way shape or form has brought us together. Outgoing with infectious confidence, Charlene hooks many out of their shyness during our weekly staff meetings, with a fierce yet gentle push that makes everyone forget their fear for a moment.
Don’t just take the staff’s word for it, the children believe it as well! In my experience of observing her classes, her method of teaching can be described flawlessly with a singular word: understanding.
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Whenever a student gets a question wrong, she simply moves on without comment and hints at the correct answer. When they get the answer right, no matter if it was 5 or 10 minutes later, she always has the same heartwarming enthusiasm for their success. On bad days, (and we know those exist) she puts no shame in the children for feeling unmotivated and even praises them for feeling comfortable enough to say such a thing.
Speaking from my own experience with Charlene Burgess, I have her to thank for my employment in Keys 2 Success. It was late April and I was a nervous wreck as it was my first time volunteering for any organization. Moreover, the visiting guest speaker of that fateful day was Tamar Greene, the current George Washington of the massively popular Broadway musical, Hamilton.
Now, a not-so-obvious fact about me is that I love Hamilton, as it was the musical that got me into show tunes. Hooking me out of my shyness, Ms. Burgess urged me to ask a question to the man, even after I refused due to my own dread of socializing. However, she persisted and I eventually got to ask a question throughout which I was excitedly giggling as if I were a child. This fond memory would never have been possible if it wasn’t for Charlene’s persistence and gentle reassurance, and my eventual commitment to the organization was all thanks to my amazing beginning.
Ultimately, Charlene Burgess is what ties the people of Keys 2 Success together by being her unapologetically self.
Ashley Molina is a rising junior at the Academy of Information Technology. She joined the staff of Keys 2 Success in 2021 through the Penpal program. She now teaches online and assists with Salesforce database management. As a child of first-generation immigrants, Ashley understands fully the systemic barriers which create unequal access to educational opportunities and networks. While her first love is writing, she is working hard toward a career in STEM by graduating as valedictorian from her middle school and earning a place in the highly selective magnet high school. Ms. Molina plans to be the first in her family to attend college.
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