Lori Franke’s violin students stood attentively. Their bows
moved in unison over their strings. Christmas carols resounded
through the Antonio Del Buono Elementary School library as the
musicians warmed up for their performance, one of many this holiday
season.
Lori Franke’s violin students stood attentively. Their bows moved in unison over their strings. Christmas carols resounded through the Antonio Del Buono Elementary School library as the musicians warmed up for their performance, one of many this holiday season. They ended with a flourish. Not as enthusiastic as Franke was looking for. So she made them do it again, and again until they got it right.
“I know you’re hungry and you’re tired. But you fake it,” Franke said. “It has to be right.” Her patience and guidance have molded a group of students that will be traveling to Hungary in July at the invitation of the famous Kodaly Institute of Music.
Franke and her students work throughout the year to raise funds for the violin program at Antonio Del Buono and the 2008 Friendship Tour. Last Friday, her tour group joined her Antonio Del Buono students at the school’s Enchilada Fiesta to raise money for the school’s violin program. Tonight, her tour group will perform in the St. Francis common room on the St. Mary Church campus at 7:30 p.m. The concert will benefit the Friendship Tour, a trip aimed to build good citizens through music.
The tour group’s mission is to spread world harmony through music. Trained in the Suzuki method, which asserts that students aspire to be excellent citizens of humanity through music education on a specific instrument, often the violin or piano, Franke immerses her students in the music and teaches them to play “by ear.”
“I didn’t hold auditions for the group,” Franke said. “All the children can learn.”
Emily Crocker, a Gilroy High School junior, has been a student of Franke’s for six years and has previously toured Europe with the group.
“I really loved it,” Crocker said. “There were so many sights to see and people to meet. We got to see a bullfight.” Crocker didn’t start playing the violin until she saw her younger brother play. “I knew that’s what I wanted to do,” she said.
Franke came to Gilroy from Southern California in 1995. Astonished that a violin program wasn’t already in place at Gilroy’s schools, she made it her goal “to get strings in the public schools.” She began teaching privately then received a grant in 1999 from the California Arts Council to teach at Antonio Del Buono. Since then, she has toured England, Germany and the Azore Islands with her students who range in age from 7 to 18.
Nettie Fields, Franke’s pianist, said the group was “one big family.” A graduate of the Juilliard School, Fields has been playing piano for 71 years. The pair has been working together for eight years.
“It keeps me young,” said Fields as she took up her place behind the piano.
Forming a long line in front of Franke to have their instruments tuned, the children buzzed with anticipation.
“I have about a gazillion violins to tune,” Franke said, holding up her hand for silence as she worked.
Sized by how long the musicians arm is, some of the violins were half the size of the smallest students.
“This is my first concert but I’m not nervous,” said Lucas Bundros, one of Franke’s youngest students at 6 years old. “I’m going to expect a lot of clapping. I’ve been practicing every day.” He and his sister, Marianna, 5, joined the more advanced musicians for a round of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas.”
After their violins were properly tuned, the children lined up “smallest to tallest,” before they mounted the stage.
“Everybody take a deep breath, smile and play your best,” Franke reminded them as they filed out of the room.
“That woman is so patient,” said Jacqui Carrasco, the mother of two violinists in Franke’s tour group. “We are so lucky in Gilroy to have teachers like her who believe that music enriches lives.”
