An unexpected highlight of Lori Franke’s trip to the Big Apple
with best friend Beverly Blount to attend the Juilliard School of
Music was the moment when a friend of the teacher stopped by class
to say hello.
An unexpected highlight of Lori Franke’s trip to the Big Apple with best friend Beverly Blount to attend the Juilliard School of Music was the moment when a friend of the teacher stopped by class to say hello.
“This 82-year-old man came running up the steps to class like he was 25,” Franke said.
“It was Tony Bennett in his shark skin suit!” Blount exclaimed. “He planted his feet and just stood there, filled with all the presence, experience, and musicianship of his long career. When he sang, he became a young man again.”
“He was totally accessible,” Franke said.
“He was very touchable,” Blount said. “I was in awe at the beauty of what he conveyed. His music sounded like water over pebbles. None of the other musicians there made me cry. But I cried for Tony.”
It’s this ability of music to touch others that Franke said she works to convey to her students as founder and director of South Valley Suzuki String Academy.
“Music knows no socio-economic, political or physical boundaries. Music education should be accessible to everyone, not just to the musically gifted,” said Franke, her bright blue eyes sparking with conviction. “No student ever has to audition to be accepted into my violin program. What matters is whether the student is willing to practice.”
Franke is Gilroy’s premier violin teacher and the Gilroy Chamber of Commerce 2008 Educator of the Year. She and Blount auditioned for and were accepted into a May Master Class together taught by violin virtuoso Ithzhak Perlman.
“We had the best time,” said Blount, who shines musically as South Valley Symphony’s Concertmaster.
“Beverly and I are sisters who were separated at birth,” Franke said of her fellow violinist. “We slept in bunk beds in the dorms at Juilliard. We were like two teenagers just giggling and enjoying ourselves.”
But it has not been easy for either of them to reach this point in life, where they perform at the pinnacle of their artistry. Both Blount and Franke have faced their share of challenges. Blount was rejected as a young student by her music teacher and had to teach herself to play. Both faced economic challenges. And the reason Franke is so adamant about not rejecting anyone on the basis of a single audition is connected to her own experience of struggling with a learning disability – she is dyslexic.
“From age 8 to 15, it was so hard,” she recalled of her struggle to read and learn to play music. She is willing to let others know about her experience for one reason and one reason only.
“I want them to see that anybody can do this – music is not just for the elite. All you have to do is work.”
She may demand a lot from students as they learn new material and practice and rehearse as a group. But there is more behind her lessons than just creating skilled musicians.
While learning the life skills of discipline, perseverance and commitment, they are in training as future ambassadors of peace and good will. Franke takes students to perform around the globe on what she calls friendship tours to places such as Canada, Germany, the Azores and Hungary. They learn to appreciate different countries, cultures, languages and customs.
Franke is currently planning her next friendship tour for summer 2010. She and her students will prepare all year for performances in Canada, a tour of Juilliard in New York City, performances in Germany and a tour of the Steinway Piano Factory. There will be many opportunities to serve as goodwill ambassadors from America.
On one such previous tour, at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemet, Hungary, her students were met with less than a warm reception. Franke was furious when she saw that due to politics, the concert had not been publicized and only 11 people were in the audience – the bureaucrats in charge.
“They thought we weren’t going to be any good because we were just little kids from America,” Franke said. But the kids, who range in age from 6 to 17, were in top form and at the peak of their abilities.
“They just went out and performed the absolute best they had ever sounded, in spite of the small audience,” Franke said. “When they got to their performance of ‘Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me,’ everyone in the audience was crying,” Franke said. “They joined hands, and the director who had been so rude became so thrilled that he was kissing my face and congratulating all my students.
“When we performed for the International Rotary Club, the entire town turned out. Music is truly an international language, and these students from Gilroy are ambassadors of peace and goodwill wherever they play.”
