Our Story: 2007-2008 (The Beginning)
January 2007 - Tina Fedeski, Gary McMillen and Margaret Munro Tobolowska decide to create a youth music program for Ottawa children. Tina travels to Venezuela in March 2007 and becomes involved with El Sistema. Spring 2007 sees the compiling of the business plan for the new OrKidstra Youth Music Program set to begin in the Fall 2007.Summer 2007 - Our business plan is coming together and The Leading Note music store on Elgin Street is the hub for all the instruments that are being acquired, either by purchase or donation, for the young recipients that will start in October 2007.
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Margaret Munro Tobolowska, cellist with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, teacher and co-founder of The Leading Note Foundation - adjusting and setting up tiny violins at The Leading Note music store. Margaret (cellist) and Susan Rupp (violinist) set up 27 violins of all sizes and colours! This is the way a cellist tries out how a violin sounds - by playing Bach Cello Suites! |
| Karen Donnelly – principal trumpet of the National Arts Centre Orchestra, teacher and Music Consultant for The Leading Note Foundation. Karen unpacking new instruments and trying out trumpets donated by Mike’s Music. |
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Tina Fedeski - teacher and Executive Director of The Leading Note Foundation, also owner of The Leading Note music store along with Gary McMillen, the president of the Foundation. Tina tries out flutes that have been donated (although she couldn't resist indulging in her budding violinist fantasies as well) . Some of the flutes were too old to make a sound, but a few were gems and were packed up to take to the Bronson Centre for our new students. |
Guy Harrison, our local luthier and string instrument expert, has offered his service to appraise all donated instruments for free, so that we can issue appropriate tax receipts for these donations.
September 2007 - The Foundation connects with the principals of schools in the inner-city Centretown area with presentations and forms for the parents of the interested children to fill out. We received 97 applications, with only 46 spaces available!
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Ottawa Citizen Article by Steven Mazey, October 13, 2007. The Ottawa Citizen’s Steven Mazey joins us at Cambridge Elementary School where our first eager students get a chance to see and feel some of our instruments and pose for the camera! To see the entire article, click here  . |
October 2007 - we organized our first fundraising concert to raise awareness of our Foundation and to begin our fundraising initiatives.
The concert was given on October 22, 2007 at McCleod Stewarton United Church in Centretown. This concert involved 12 NACO musicians who donated their services, along with a talented group of young musicians from Ottawa, Trio Scherzando. The support of the community and the turn out was overwhelming.
At this point, we had raised $10,000 in donations from private individuals and local Ottawa businesses who believe that music enhances and truly creates a more kind and tolerant community. We also received a number of instrument donations worth over $8,000.
The Foundation finds its home among other non-profit organizations at the Bronson Centre in Centretown. The welcome is warm and the space and location is great as most of the students are within walking distance! The classes are to take place there on Monday evenings and we have an office located there, as well.
October 22, 2007 - After all of this preparation, we meet all the students at the Bronson Centre for their first class!
A good deal of time is spent sizing the students for their instruments (e.g. violins come in 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and full size). The proper fit is a must for these budding new violinsts and they will require different sizes as they grow.
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| Jean Barsalou,our Suzuki specialist teacher, and our junior violin students. | "Bunny holds" abound, as the children get their first lesson from U of O student teacher, Paul Casey, on how to hold the bow. |
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| Susan Rupp, our senior violin teacher, sizing our students. | Proper maintenance and care of the instruments is reinforced, as these are a part of our instrument loan program and will be used by many children well into the future. |
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| With 27 new violinists in the program, you can imagine the relief when all were outfitted and ready to play! | A young student gets help playing one of our six donated cellos! Thank you donors! |
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The word is spreading throughout the musical community and the Foundation gains the support of many musicians in the National Arts Centre Orchestra. Currently we have four musicians from the NACO teaching, two Suzuki trained instructors, one teacher from the Ottawa Youth Orchestra Academy, as well as two University of Ottawa student teachers. We also have eight mentors from the Ottawa Youth Orchestra Academy who are committed to helping in their community by assisting our teachers and students. | |
| One of our mentors helps a student with his bow hold. |
Our teachers are all highly motivated, and meeting after meeting, discuss how we should proceed and how many teachers we need to fulfill the needs of the different children we have. We are building a new curriculum that is representative of our distinctly multicultural Canadian back-ground. Our committed team of teachers believe in the creativity and potential of all children to grow and thrive in the presence of music. They not only have experience teaching and performing but, most importantly, the passion to make a difference in the lives of the children and youth that we teach.
December 2007 - After several successful classes with excellent attendance, the Foundation hosts its first (of many) Christmas parties. The students and their parents were serenaded with a brief concert put on by the teachers and the mentors. It was still a bit early for our students to perform - but, just wait until next year!
January 2008
The second term of our first year carried on.
April 2008
The second term culminated with our students' first performance in our year end concert. This was followed the next week by a cross Centre Town tour which featured a small concert at three of the beacon schools. It was great for our students' peers to see them in action!
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| The string section of our OrKidstra's first performance. | The guitar class formed an integral part of the OrKidstra. |
May 2008
An special 2-month "summer course" was added to take the program to the end of the school year. This marked the introduction of the KidSingers choir program, headed by Marg Stubington.
At the end of the intensive course another concert took place for all of the parents and donors who were able to see the product of all of those months of hard work.
Continue on to our second year.
