Marblehead Student Performs at White House State Dinner

Jordan Calixto, 22, of Marblehead, a double bass player and a Project STEP (String Training and Education Program) alumnus, now a college student at Yale, is one of four students who recently performed at a White House State Dinner with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.

Also in the audience for the performance were Vice President Joe Biden, Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, his wife Ho Ching, and 200 guests, including Massachusetts State Senator Ed Markey, Secretary of State John F. Kerry, author Amy Tan, actors Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys, and singer Chrisette Michele, who also performed at the end of the evening. The event honored the United States 50-year relationship with Singapore.

The four outstanding students were selected because of their long-time experience playing with Project STEP in Boston. The students performed pieces by Bach, Mozart, and Handel as guests arrived for the dinner, and they played several pieces after dinner with the United States Marine Band. At the end of the one-and-a-half hour event, President Obama publicly thanked Project STEP for performing.

“With only six days to put together their performance, the students really rose to the occasion and played their hearts out for President Obama and the First Lady,” says Sanna. “They perform a lot, and at many different events, but this one was truly special and inspiring. Performing at the White House was a life changing experience for them.”

This is Project STEP’s second trip to the White House within the past two years. In 2014, the music organization was honored with the National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. The award is the signature program of the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities and is the highest honor for such programs in the United States.

Project STEP is a rigorous, year-round classical string training program for under-represented minorities that invites them into a world of classical music that might not otherwise be available to them. Studies show long term music education programs, such as the one Project STEP provides, increases overall academic achievement, literacy and language abilities, communication, graduation rates, and college enrollment, as well as performance skills, and cultural awareness.

Prompted by concern over the historic underrepresentation of minority classical musicians, Project STEP was founded in 1982 by William Moyer, a now-retired Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) personnel manager. As the first program of its kind, Project STEP’s mission is to address this imbalance by identifying talented, motivated young minority students and providing them with access to the best string music training available. As of 2012, just five percent of orchestra musicians in the United States are African-American or Latino. Since its inception, one hundred percent of Project STEP students go on to college or conservatory and 60 percent of its graduates are now professionally involved in music.

PHOTO: President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore and Mrs. Lee Hsien Loong join State Dinner performers, Project STEP from Boston, Mass., for a group photo in the Blue Room of the White House.

(Photo credit: Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

L-R:

Lev Mamuya, Project STEP alum of Newton, Mass.

Jodie McMenamin, manager of individual gifts at Project STEP

Gabriella Sanna, executive director of Project STEP

President Barack Obama

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore

First Lady Michelle Obama

Mrs. Lee Hsien Loong

Jordan Calixto, Project STEP alum of Marblehead, Mass.

Tristan Flores, Project STEP alum of Lexington, Mass.

Njioma Grevious, Project STEP student, of Newton, Mass.