If you found yourself roaming the corridors of the Ausable Valley High School on October 10, you would have heard, sequentially or as some strange, dissonant ensemble, rhythmic drumming, scraping bows, bleating horns, rising and falling voices – “floating noise,” – to quote Evan Mack, the opera composer and Skidmore College professor.
Mack is also the founder and executive director of We Are Instrumental (WAI), a six-year-old, Ticonderoga-based non-profit that places musical instruments, lessons and cultural programing within reach of students and teachers in schools throughout the North Country.
On October 10, Mack was sampling the sights and sounds of WAI’s third “summit” – a day of workshops, rehearsals, master classes and performances for students, and, for teachers, new opportunities for professional development.
“The Music Summit is more than an educational event – it’s where the North Country’s future takes the stage,” said Mack. “When you put instruments in the hands of students and connect them with world-class educators, it is a transformative experience. Students discover their potential, teachers gain new inspiration and entire communities witness the unifying power of music.”
An Organic Outgrowth of a Musical Instrument Drive
This year’s Summit brought 400 students from ten schools throughout the North Country to the Ausable Forks-Keeseville area.
According to Mack, the Music Summit grew organically from the earliest iteration of WAI – a 2019 appeal to Skidmore students, faculty and staff, as well as local residents, to donate their “gently used instruments” to a school that could use them.
Not long after Mack and his wife, Hudson Headwaters physician Kristin Mack, enrolled their two sons in Ticonderoga’s Elementary School, they learned from ten-year-old Carter that most of the instruments used by the school’s music programs were battered and old, some dating back to the 1920s.
As Michael Ituurro, the school’s music director explained, the school district simply didn’t have the resources to replace the instruments, so Evan came up with a solution of his own.
“I had no doubt there were a lot of people who had instruments sitting around collecting dust, and others who had instruments that had been passed along from one student to the next and needed new homes, or some who had back-up instruments that could be spared,” said Mack.
“When Evan saw that our instruments were more or less held together, to the best of our ability, by paper clips and duct tape, he jumped into action,” said Iturrino, now president of WAI.
The drive netted 70 instruments, worth roughly $35,000. And that was just the start. Since 2020, Mack and those helping him have collected 700 instruments and distributed them across 30 North Country school districts.
In 2022, the grass roots effort was institutionalized as the non-profit WAI, which, in addition to supplying schools with musical instruments, hosts field trips to concert halls, instructs music teachers and students in instrument repair and offers roughly 40 high school students virtual music lessons with college instructors, Mack himself included. And, of course, holds an annual Music Summit.
Overcoming Barriers
At the annual Summit, students have an opportunity to work in-person with the instructors with whom they have been studying remotely, learn from professional musicians with whom they might not otherwise have an opportunity to meet, and bond with one another.
“Our summits have grown, from 300 to 400 students and to more than twenty instructors, and we see it only continuing to grow,” said Mack. “Within a couple years we may be holding separate summits for voice, for woodwinds, for brass. We may be able to organize one summit for the southern Adirondacks and another for the North Country. We’re intent on overcoming barriers in whatever form they exist – financial, geographic, educational.”
At this year’s summit, WAI teamed up with Harmony Explosion Northeast (HXNE) and Debbie Cleveland—a nationally renowned choral director and barbershop educator—to work with vocal students.
Students and teachers were also able to hone their skills in repairing and maintaining brass and woodwind instruments in workshops with Bill Cole, owner of Cole’s Woodwind and Brass Repairs in Saratoga.
“I’ve taught a lot of these programs, but these teachers and students have had a higher level of dedication than most groups,” said Cole. “They came with the intention and the desire to learn. That makes a huge difference.”
The day culminated in performances in the school auditorium by individuals, the chorus and a variety of ensembles.
“Many of the performances are impromptu. Some of them are wonderful. Some are wonderfully awful. It’s all great, though,” said Mack.
The WAI Summit as a state-wide model
According to Mack, WAI’s Summit is meant to serve as a model for schools throughout New York State looking to expand access to arts education. “We’re not interested in imposing a model upon other communities; we just wanted to show how barriers to the kinds of opportunities we offer can be overcome,” said Mack.
