Watch These Newark Students Play Recorders At NJPAC

NEWARK, NJ — After months of practice, a huge group of Newark students recently showed off the power of the recorder when they played alongside a string quartet from the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, a jazz ensemble led by drummer Jerome Jennings, and the duo of Moran Katz on recorder and Robert Stephens on piano.

A recital at NJPAC’s Prudential Hall on June 15 featured young musicians from the Recorder Arts for Musical Pathways (RAMP), an art learning partnership between NJPAC and Newark Public Schools (NPS).

Displaying a mastery over finger fatigue and shortness of breath, the third and fourth grade instrumentalists tootled their way through repertoire ranging from “Merrily We Roll Along” to Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

“I absolutely got chills, looking out over the orchestra and all the way up to the fourth tier in Prudential Hall, seeing and hearing these third- and fourth-graders performing in unison,” said Margaret El, special assistant for the arts at NPS.

Watch a video from the performance below.

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Photo: Norman DeShong / NJPAC, used with permission