Left to right: Dr. Marcello Cavazos, Arlington ISDSuperintendent of Schools; Joseph Strohl, Music & Arts Corp. Master RepairTechnician and Arlington ISD Musical Instrument Repair Teacher; Dr. Jeremy Earnhart, Arlington ISD Director of Fine Arts; Vincent Chiappone, Music & Arts Director of Sales.
Yamaha Corporation of America has donated more than $66,000 worth of wind instruments in need of repair to the Arlington Independent School District in Arlington TX. The district is offering the first high school program in the country to provide students with professional-level, hands-on instruction and experience refurbishing instruments. Voters in the Arlington Independent School District recently passed a $663 million bond, part of which will be used to enhance this music education initiative that is designed to address the national shortage of qualified band instrument repair technicians. Yamaha donated marching mellophones, trumpets, sousaphones, saxophones, a marching tuba and a trombone to support the program, which is a public-private partnership between the school district and Music & Arts, the largest band and orchestra instrument retailer in the nation.
Initially, the program will be housed at Bowie High School and will eventually move into the district’s new $32 million fine arts center, slated for completion in 2018. Music & Arts supplies the instructor and ensures that students who successfully compete the two-year program are apprenticeship-ready. Music & Arts has already lined up participating students with summer jobs in the field.According to District Fine Arts Director Jeremy Earnhart, participation in music education programs has jumped 22 percent as the district bolsters its offerings and upgrades its facilities, illustrating the appeal of music and art in the region.
“Without this donation from Yamaha, we would have had to wait for our students’ instruments to become unusable,” said Earnhart. “This pioneering program allows our students to learn on professional quality instruments and itexposes them to a wide variety of wind instruments that they would not otherwisehave had an opportunity to work on.”