Backstage at Marshall Middle School, two trombonists set up a music stand to share.
“Let’s turn it this way,” said Randy Crow, one of the two musicians. “If we’ve got it this way, that’s not enough light for my old eyes to see.”
Crow is a retired Maize band director and a college-level trombone instructor. His stand partner, Victor, is a seventh grader. The two walk through a warm up — sliding between trombone positions — before they discuss what they came to practice.
“So Victor, this solo — I picked this out for you because I thought it would sound good with you,” Crow said. “And it’ll take some work, but you’re a good player, and I think you can make this happen.”
Middle and high school band directors often oversee cacophonous classrooms, coaxing melodies from the unruly instruments of dozens of students. Opportunities to work with students one-on-one or even in small groups sometimes means a teacher has to give up their lunch period. That’s where mentors like Crow come in.
He’s part of the Music Youth Partnership, a nonprofit organization formed in 2022. The program hires and pays professional musicians to work alongside band directors in Wichita Public Schools.
“We work under the direction of the band director, the real hero,” said Cathy Grant, the executive director of Music Youth Partnership. “So we come in and … we say, ‘How can we best assist you? What's the best thing this week? What can we do?’ ”
Grant herself volunteered to give lessons to a middle school band in the 1990s, which is how she got the idea for Music Youth Partnership. Since it started last year, the program now employs two brass musicians and two woodwind experts.
The mentors work in band classrooms in two Wichita middle schools once a week. When students progress from middle to high school, mentors like Crow hope to move with them and partner with the high school band.
Janel Koonce is Marshall Middle School’s band director. She said the extra hands from Music Youth Partnership are priceless as she tries to teach up to eight different instruments, from tubas to trumpets to trombones.
“We have co-teachers in our district, but we don't have enough to go around to all the schools with all the classes that need them,” Koonce said. “And so I think this organization is trying to fill a need that's there.”
Koonce said there’s a few vital roles the mentors serve. One is that they can pull out small groups of students who need extra help with a specific part of the music. That means she doesn’t need to stop the whole group to work through a small detail.
“I don't know if you've ever worked with a bunch of middle schoolers, but you know, they sit idle for too long, mischief starts to happen,” Koonce said. “So, it's just good to keep on moving forward.”
Individual or small group instruction is extra important for beginning musicians, so they don’t get frustrated and give up, said Emily Cox. She is another Music Youth Partnership mentor at Marshall Middle school, where she primarily works with woodwinds.
“Initially, it’s just so hard for them because … you have to be able to read the notes, you have to be able to read the rhythms. You have to be able to put the instrument together. …You have to have so many things going on that it can be really overwhelming to a beginner.
“But once they start getting those sounds and making those connections and seeing that it’s really cool to be able to play ‘Hot Cross Buns’ with three notes, it helps them want to continue.”
The program has started to fill other gaps in music education that might pop up, like the cost of buying or maintaining an instrument. Grant said a local music store collects donated instruments and shares them with Music Youth Partnership, which distributes them to kids who need them.
Grant hopes Music Youth Partnership will result in more young musicians auditioning for the Wichita Symphony Youth Orchestra and playing in music competitions. Mentors like Crow and Cox can help kids prepare solo pieces for music competitions without needing the help of the band director.
“I don't have the time to work with all of those kids that might be interested,” Koonce said. “So, it's really nice to have Randy come in.
“He can pull those kids out and work with them on their solos while I keep working on a class. And that means I don't have to give up my lunchtime to pull kids in and do that.”
Last year, when Crow started working at Marshall, only one student competed with a solo in a music competition. But the student got recognized for the performance, and Crow said that’s inspired more kids this year.
“I really truly think that one of the reasons that there's more interest this year in people taking solos and ensembles,” Crow said.
Backstage, he works with Victor on his solo.
“OK, let’s try that again,” Crow instructs. “So those notes are pretty connected. Even though they look kind of fast as eighth notes, they’re not real fast.”
The music eventually quiets.
“This is tricky,” Crow said. “You did great! You did great.”
