If he keeps at it, practicing every day, sometime in the next few years 16-year-old Norman Mason may make it to the Auditorium stage. His dream is to be a first-class jazz pianist. If he gets there, and his teachers say he has a chance, the Sullivan High School junior will owe some thanks to Deborah Sobol and Larry Combs.
The program was conceived by Sobol in an attempt to replace the music programs lost to a decade of budget cuts. Years ago just about every high school in the system offered courses in art and music. Nowadays, there’s only enough money to fund courses in one of the two subjects at each school.
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Now CCM is a regular feature in the school. “We do a lot of different things here,” says Diana Schmuck, a pianist and the group’s education outreach director. “We have classroom visits where we perform. We also offer private lessons for kids who are learning the piano or a band instrument. Whenever we can, we bus the kids in to our Cultural Center concerts.
Recently, Combs brought a newly formed combo to play jazz for Mason’s music appreciation class. As Combs explained to the students, he makes his living playing classical music, but his first love remains jazz. “Oddly enough, we had never played together before this morning,” Combs told his audience. “But musicians accumulate standards. You call a tune and everyone knows it. It’s sort of like good basketball players scrimmaging on the court.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/J. Alexander Newberry.
