Music to their ears: East Hill student musicians in a band – and a family

You’ll probably never see an African marimba on MTV.

Make that the same for any Taylor Swift offerings.

For a group of student musicians at East Hill Elementary School, however, the African marimba permeates their consciousness in more ways than a Top 40 ballad ever could.

They are Nza (Swahili for “Little Bird”) a 15-member band that recently wowed educators at a national music conference in Spokane.

Led by East Hill music teacher Matthew Kelly, the band is a select but revolving group, meaning students earn their way to a chair in it, but vacate those slots for younger students, upon graduating to junior high.

“There’s usually a waiting list,” Kelly said, of kids wanting to play.

In the case of this past year’s Nza, Kelly challenged his young musicians to perform at heights they never before imagined.

It even involved taking time out from summer break every week, to perform and keep their skills fresh, as well as to play at public venues across the Puget Sound region. Thanks to a dedicated group of parents willing to drive them, the students wound up playing everything from the Puyallup Fair (“they were blown away,” Kelly said of their audiences there), to the Kent Farmers Market, the Beat Walk in Seattle (“people stuck their heads out of windows as they drove by,” Kelly said, upon hearing the band) and a major shopping mall in Spokane.

All that practice culminated in a standing-ovation performance Nov. 6 at the American Orff-Schulwerk Association Conference in Spokane.

The AOSA, as it is called, is the national body of an educators’ group that uses a teaching system developed by German composer Composer Carl Orff and his associate Gunild Keetman.

The “Orff Schulwerk,” as the German-origin curriculum is called, uses music as an entry point to many kinds of studies: writing, self expression, teamwork, math and movement.

One of the special Orff melody instruments in the curriculum are wooden xylophones, which is what African marimbas are. They’re relatively easy to master, and that is an important part of Orff Schulwerk.

“It’s a very accessible instrument, and Carl Orff knew this,” Kelly said.

So, with teamwork and a lot of committed practice, the students of Nza can fill a classroom with an ocean of rhythmic sound, bursting with complex melodies that interwoven with a profound bass beat.

And, thanks to their spot-on perfect performance in Spokane, the students of Nza discovered they could fill a music hall with a dazzling sound, enough to merit a standing ovation by educators who know what good marimba music is supposed to be.

“I think we introduced the audience to a whole new level of music,” Kelly said, noting that for his young charges, now used to playing for crowds, were unflappable.

“It was just another performance,” Kelly said, with an evident level of pride in his voice.

For some Nza members, however, that last performance in Spokane had an element of the bittersweet. A number of them who this year had gone on to middle school continued to practice with the band over the summer and after school this fall to prepare for Spokane. Once that show ended, so too did their membership in the close-knit family the band had become.

“Oh, you shoulda seen me, my tears they were twinkling,” said Lily Le, now a seventh-grader, of that final performance. “It was a sprinkle effect.”

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Le’s friend and band member Regina Lorenzo, of that magical night in Spokane. “All my friends were there.”

Kelly said he noted just how close his students had become when he happened to see them goofing around before their final performance. They could have broken off into groups, or just hung out by themselves.

But they were all together. And they were making music.

For fun.

“I turned around and they all playing a singing game,” he said. “They became a family because of the performances.”

But the band would never have been able to do all that it did without the support of parents, Kelly said.

“The parents are really the backbone of all this,” the instructor said.

Another group making Nza’s Spokane performance possible was funding from the Kent Community Foundation.

Kelly had asked the nonprofit group, which supports local schools, for a $600 grant to help cover expenses for the trip.

The foundation responded with a $1,000 donation to the band.

“That really made the trip for us,” Kelly said.

For now, Nza has completed its performances for the school year. But expect it to start up again this spring, and to a lineup of kids wanting to be a part of something special.

To learn more about the band, and the music program at Easthill Elementary that Kelly oversees, contact him at 253-373-7455.

To learn more about the Kent Community Foundation, go to www.kentcf.org.