Young violinist connects with kids    

By Melinda Bargreen

Gareth Johnson was 10 when his life changed.

His dad took him to a St. Louis Symphony Orchestra concert, and young Gareth heard violinist Itzhak Perlman play.

"That guy was amazing!" says Johnson, now 19. "I thought, 'I have to learn how to play that violin!' "

He certainly did. Johnson, a student who now works with the renowned violinist Sergiu Schwartz at the Lynn University Conservatory of Music in Boca Raton, Fla., will be featured with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra in the first movement of a Mozart violin concerto in two free community concerts open to the public — tomorrow night at Langston Hughes Performing Arts Center and Thursday night at the West Seattle High School Performing Arts Theatre.

Additionally, Johnson is bringing his violin and his kid-friendly charm to several local elementary schools under the auspices of the symphony's Access Program, showing youngsters that yes, it's cool to play the violin no matter what your background or color.

At Wing Luke Elementary School last Wednesday, he told a rapt cluster of kids aged 6 to 8 about gathering up all his 10th-birthday money ("You know, $20 from your Grandma, and some more from your parents") and heading to a pawn shop for a student-size violin to play. His school had no music programs and no instruments to borrow. Fortunately, things are different at Wing Luke: Principal Ellen Punyon tells the group that they'll all have access to instruments in the fourth grade.

"Start tomorrow!" Johnson urges the big-eyed youngsters who have just listened to him sail through some impressive cadenzas and flourishes.

"Start practicing!"

The excited youngsters blurt out comments and questions.

"That's beautiful music!"

"Can you play with two of those things [bows] at once?"

"Why do you have to put your left hand on the strings? My brother doesn't do that."

"Can you make scary sounds?"

And, after one contemplative and sad phrase from the fiddle:

"It's almost like somebody died."

Johnson, who says he feels "just like a big kid, so I know what they'll understand," is clearly on the kids' wavelength.

"You could take a big video game, something like 'Grand Theft Auto,' and spend 50 hours on it so you can beat it. Who do you tell? A couple of friends, maybe, who all did the same thing," he explains to the youngsters.

"It doesn't mean anything; it's nothing special.

"But if I spend 50 hours learning a piece of music, I can show thousands of people. It's an honor to do that. In fact, in a few days I am going to play in a big concert hall — Carnegie Hall — in New York City!"

"Oooooooh!" say the kids in perfect unison. They're so into the music that in a slower selection, they try to sing along with the violin and match its melodic rise and fall.

Johnson's appearances in Seattle are just one part of the Seattle Symphony's ongoing Access Program, an initiative linking the orchestra with underserved schools in South and Southwest Seattle through free in-school performances, community concerts and curriculum support. The Wing Luke students are already so familiar with symphony volunteer Jeanne Ehrlichman Bluechel that shouts of "Miss Jeanne! Miss Jeanne!" go up when she enters the classroom (along with Johnson and the orchestra's education director, Patricia Costa Kim).

Johnson will visit Aki Kurose and Denny middle schools, and T.T. Minor and Leschi elementaries this week.

Not every student is lucky enough to have a supportive family like Johnson, whose mother has a doctor of musical-arts degree and whose aunt is an editor for publisher McGraw Hill's music series. Johnson knows he just has a short time to "make the child know it's really the cool thing to be playing the violin."

But he has a sense of mission.

"You know, it's like Tiger Woods. Before he came on the scene, kids thought golf was this boring game played by older guys. Now kids of all ages say, 'I'm going to be like Tiger Woods!' If I can be their role model for music, that's great."

Johnson's own role models are not musicians: he lists Michael Jordan, Donald Trump and Woods among them. He's also deeply interested in hip-hop music and just recorded a rap disc with his violin.

"What I do is to take a piece like Barber's Adagio for Strings, and choose a part of it to be the beat of the hip-hop song, then I play the violin over it and my oldest brother Gordon will rap over it."

He doesn't bring out the rap music in the classroom, but Johnson knows he can win the kids over with his instrument alone.

"First, I have to impress them and get them into it, by playing something really fast and exciting — the sort of thing I would have wanted to hear as a little kid.

"Then I try to keep their attention as I play, with different facial expressions that reflect the music. I get a bond with them, become close to them. I know how they react and how they think."

Johnson and the Seattle Symphony linked up through the Sphinx program, a Michigan organization that encourages black and Hispanic students to get involved with classical music as performers and listeners. Johnson was a 2002 winner of the Sphinx competition and has gone on to win a favorable review in The New York Times for his "dramatic, fluent account" of an Ysaye sonata.

Why does he spend so much of his time in elementary schools?

"It's all about the schools. Teaching music is what draws the kids in. We were very unlucky that there were no strings in school; if my brother had started violin, I think he would have been a really good player.

"People think of music as an extra. But it isn't an extra; it helps children develop their brains. It gives them a way to express themselves. I always tell them: follow your dreams, reach for the sky. If you can imagine it, you can do it."