High School Music Students Get an International Treat

Students of Fort Lee High School's Academy of Performing Arts (APA) program got a special treat on Friday. Not only were several School of Music percussion students given the opportunity to play before several professionals in order to receive valuable real-world criticism and advice, but they were able to watch an inspiring performance as part of a collaboration project between exchange students at Lehman College from the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Ireland.

Before the performance students played a number of percussion pieces under direction of Fort Lee High School’s percussion instructor Dan DiStefano.

APA Director Shelly Fox had scheduled the visit of the professional musicians and critics and their students, hoping it would be a great experience for music students.

“We want them to be able to take criticism, make adjustments, and get better,” Fox said.

DiStefano tried to explain the importance of taking criticism to some of the program’s dance students who were at the performance.

“I [told them] you can’t take it personally,” he said. “This is just the way things are done.”

Among the professionals there were Richard O’Donnell, professor at the Royal Irish Academy of Music – and Shelley Fox’s brother, Donald Knaack, an independent musician and composer from Vermont, who teaches music “wherever they’ll have him,” John McLachlan, PhD, a freelance composer from Ireland and Professor Morris Lang from Lehman college.

O’Donnell and Lang have been working together for 12 years, bringing exchange students form the Royal Irish Academy of Music to Lehman College as part of a collaborative effort of percussion study.

After the Master Class, in which the attending composers gave students valuable criticism, O’Donnell and Lang’s students played several pieces. One of the pieces was composed by John McLachlan himself, who seemed pleased  with the performance by the college-aged students.

The APA students in attendance were kept in rapt attention. Excited whispers could be heard between movements. A big favorite was “junk music,” or percussion music played on found objects like bottles, pieces of glass, cheese graters, hunks of metal, etc. Composer Ronald Knaack played with some of the performers on stage.

DiStefano was happy with the second visit from the group to Fort Lee High School.

“I think it’s a great thing,” he said, “[Students] get to interact with students nationally – not just through the internet.”