Baltimore Residency, March 2011
Finally, Our Climb to the Top of the Blatterhorn by Matthew Cameron
It was a residency that we've all been waiting for for a long time but finally, in February, 2011, the Archipelago Project had the pleasure of traveling to Baltimore, Maryland to work with the Baltimore Symphony's OrchKids at Lockerman-Bundy Elementary School. The OrchKids program, modeled on Venezuela's el Sistema, uses music as a vehicle for social change in some of the toughest neighborhoods in Baltimore.
During our week-long residency with the OrchKids, we did everything from joining them at snack-time to leading rehearsals, teaching new songs, and performing with the choir, bucket band and orchestra. The kids were remarkably fast learners. The orchestra rehearsed and performed Gustav Holst's “Mars.” A group of second year students learned “When the Saints Go Marching In” by ear and then added their own bass line, backgrounds and improvisation. The choir picked-up “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” in virtually no time and the bucket band didn't miss a beat when they joined us to play “Sacred Fanfare.”
When we weren't working with the OrchKids we were usually off teaching or performing somewhere else. We worked with some great kids at schools around Eastern Maryland, the Chesapeake Youth Symphony in Annapolis, and the Peabody Institute's Tuned-In program to name a few. Our most notable performance happened at an elementary school in West Baltimore.
We arrived to find a student getting carted off on stretcher at the adjacent high school and tall barbed-wire fences around the athletic fields. Inside the elementary was a student body with the energy of a fusion reaction. It didn't seem to matter what style we played - funk, polka, Baroque, swing – they just soaked it up. After playing for about twenty minutes, we called “Back to the V,” a tune written by Archipelago co-founder Garrett Mendez. As soon as those first gristly, driving notes hit the room the energy spiked and the kids went wild. Sensing the audience needed a pressure release valve, Dan Trahey put his tuba down and the band vamped while he collected a group of about 15 kids to come on stage and dance. It was amazing. Flips, the worm, you name it and the kids were doing it as they danced in front of their schoolmates. So incredible was it that half the band had to put down their instruments to record the scene with their smartphones.
Baltimore and the OrchKids were amazing and our residency there got to the heart of why we do what we do. Everyone deserves to experience and make music regardless of their socioeconomic status and often it is the people who have the least access who need it most. And for those wondering about the term “Blatterhorn,” its simple: Baltimore shorted to Balt, modified to Blat, and expanded to Blatterhorn. Makes sense to us anyway.
