'Making music is a wonderful feeling'

At around quarter to four, four days a week, the cars start rolling into the parking lot in front of the Dartmouth Music Centre on Major Street. Kids, clutching instruments and binders of music, wave goodbye to their chauffeurs and shout cheery hellos to their fellow musicians as they stream into the welcoming old building. They range in age from 10 to 19, but they are all brought together by their love of music.

It is a scene that has repeated itself, with some variations, since the beginning of the Dartmouth All-City Music program 54 years ago.

The program, which is solely funded through supplementary funding, offers band, choir, strings and theory to students living anywhere within the Halifax Regional School Board district. Currently, more than 1,000 students take part, some in more than one of the offered programs.

A few years ago, a fridge and a microwave were added to the music centre's staff room so that students like 16-year-old Michael Mackley of Prince Andrew High would have a place to eat or hang-out in between classes. The Grade 11 student spends two evenings a week at the centre, one in the Senior Concert Band and one in the Senior Jazz Band. He says the place is "like a second home."

His fellow-trumpeter, Stephanie Conrod, says that although she has to drive 30 minutes from her home on the Eastern Shore to take part in the band, it's totally worth it.

"Music is really important to me - I'm planning on studying it at university," explains Conrod. "This band is advanced and I'm learning a lot of technical stuff. I think it's really helping me make progress."

While the Senior Concert Band is warming up with their B flat concert scale in one room, there are two groups of violin players - Grades 7 and 8/9 - being put through their paces in neighbouring rooms. The halls are positively humming with music.

And that staff room/student lounge is also a hive of activity. Kids are chatting, reading, and working on homework. Volunteer band parents are collecting cheques for the annual Tatamagouche workshop weekend, trotting back and forth between classrooms to remind students that the money is due, and meticulously recording the collections.

This workshop is one of the many activities offered to students at the centre. There are overnights to music festivals, an end-of-year trip to Upper Clements Park for choir members, and this year, an "awesome" trip to New York for the Senior Orchestra, Jazz and Concert Bands.

In an effort to keep cost down, the trips are partially financed by tireless fundraising activities such as pie sales, basket raffles and a charitable donation campaign.

"We try very hard to ensure these programs are accessible to everyone," says Sue Logan, coordinator of the All-City Music Program. "The registration fees are minimal, and we have programs in place where we work with schools to sponsor kids in need with instrument rentals and taxi chits. We even have a black and white clothing sale - more like an exchange - so that people don't have to buy concert dress clothes."

Back in the classrooms, the youth choir is running through a piece called Sending You a Little Christmas.

"This is a tricky part. It's got those cute jazz chords and close harmonies," says choir director Karen Newhook-MacDonald as she brings the 60 young girls to attention. "I just need you to focus for five more minutes."

The students listen, and for the next few minutes, the room is filled with angelic music.

As the accompanist plays the last chord, the room erupts, and the "angels" become typical boisterous teens again.

"I've wanted to join the choir ever since I was in Grade 4, and this year I bugged my mom until she signed me up," says Melanie Blagdon, a Grade 7 student at Ellenvale Junior High. "It's fun to sing and to be here with my friends."

Fourteen-year-old Natalia El-Moukhtafi sums up her Music Centre experiences like this:

"When the school day is over and you're really tired, you come here and it puts a smile on your face. Making music is a wonderful feeling ... I love this place!"

k-watson@ns.sympatico.ca