My name is Paul Salerni and I am the new Chair of the Board of Directors of SAA. Since many of you don’t know me, I thought I would spend the first part of this column introducing myself and sharing my history with the Suzuki Method. I am a Professor of Music at Lehigh University where I teach composition and theory and direct the new music ensemble called LUVME (The Lehigh University Very Modern Ensemble). Thanks to firm and trusted advice from my sister-in-law, I became a Suzuki parent in 1990. Both my sons studied violin with Linda Fiore and during a sabbatical semester in 1993 I took Suzuki viola lessons from Linda, joyfully reaching the end of Book 1. My oldest son Domenic has persisted with the violin, graduating from the Pre-College Division at Juilliard this past spring. He will continue violin study with William Preucil, Jr. and Linda Cerone this fall as a freshman at The Cleveland Institute of Music. My son Miles has become an excellent percussionist; moreover, the organizational skills and confidence instilled by the Suzuki Method have been an aid in his facing serious health challenges. Clearly, my children experienced great musical and personal growth as a result of the Suzuki Method in their lives.

My experience as a Suzuki parent has also had a profound impact on my growth as a teacher, a composer, and a servant leader. Witnessing Linda’s compelling lessons and group classes every week inspired a renewed commitment to excellent teaching in my own classroom; in addition, my educational stance was both enhanced and reinforced by my exposure to Dr. Suzuki’s step-by-step approach, his recognition of the talent of every human, and his emphasis on a nurturing attitude. As I realized the amazing potential for music making in young children, I became more interested in composing for children—in the last dozen years, a significant number of my pieces have been written for young people to either perform or enjoy. In 1998, I was nominated to run for election to the SAA Board on a non-teacher slate and was thrilled to win. I served for a year on the Board, took a year off for a sabbatical in Italy, and returned to serve out my three-year term. Two years ago I was asked by the Board to stay on as Chair-Elect, and I now address you as Chair. In those five years on the Board, I have made friends with some very energetic, thoughtful, and deep-feeling humans, and I have discovered new ways to contribute to a larger community’s efforts to strengthen the world’s heart through music.

As I look back over my 15-year involvement with the Suzuki Method, I am astonished by its tremendous growth both in reputation and size. In 1990, when I told friends about starting a son in Suzuki, they would ask, “Why would you buy a three year old a motorcycle?” Now my friends of a slightly younger generation call me to ask for names of good Suzuki teachers. The local youth symphony conductors and music camp directors also call to ask who the excellent Suzuki teachers are so that they can recruit their students. More often than not, my sons’ colleagues at the highest level of the young musical world have had Suzuki training. In my opinion, the Suzuki Method, once perceived as a fringe pedagogy, now occupies a respected position at the center of the musical and educational mainstream.

That was just a little personal and anecdotal evidence about the state of the Method. As the Method has matured and evolved, so has the Association that protects and promotes it. In the case of the Association, we have supportive facts. In 1990, SAA had 3875 active members and 960 associate members, the SAA staff had one full-time and two part-time employees. In 1993, the SAA Board had 15 directors that not only governed the Association but also participated in the everyday work of the Association. In 2005, SAA has 6200 Active members, 1700 Associate members, and 260 teachers in the Latin American membership category. The staff includes a CEO, five full-time and three part-time staff. The Board of ten directors crafts the policies for the Association, which are then made real by the programs, products, and services produced by the CEO, her staff, and committees of many member volunteers. The Board has also made fund-raising one of its central activities. So in these last fifteen years, SAA has almost doubled its membership and evolved from a rather intimate organization with a working Board and small staff, to a much more international organization with a larger staff and a smaller Board whose primary responsibilities are governing the Association and securing funding for its programs.

We should celebrate these very positive changes in reputation, size, and structure, keeping in mind that those changes present a new set of opportunities and challenges. I hope in subsequent columns to discuss some of those opportunities and challenges and the policies and programs that are being developed to address them. In the meantime, I have three important items of business to address:

1) Information

In order for the Board to better craft the policies that govern the Association, it needs considerable input from its members. One of the most pleasant ways to gather that information has been informal conversations at all the places where the Suzuki community meets: retreats, conferences, summer institutes, workshops, etc. But as we have grown larger, there is a need to gather more specific data and to reach those who cannot attend all of these events. As a start in generating more complete information, the SAA staff has crafted a teacher profile survey that can be completed on the SAA website. Please read the article in this issue about that survey, and if you are a Suzuki teacher, please take the time respond. Also note that the feedback the Board received during its linkage session at the May leadership retreat in California is being summarized and collated and will appear, along with summer institute Focus meeting feedback, in the next issue of the Journal. Let me encourage you to read it.

2) Board Election Results

One of the most interesting Board jobs I’ve had has been serving as chair of the Board’s Nominations Committee. Choosing members to run for the Board involves gathering information about, and having conversations with, prospective nominees. Because there are so many superbly qualified and passionate people in the Suzuki world, making those choices can be difficult. After an uncommonly long process this year, the Nominations Committee, with approval from the entire Board, chose three SAA teacher members to run for two seats on the Board. We thought this was a wonderfully balanced and qualified slate—David Madsen, a guitarist from the East Coast, Beth Goldstein-McKee, a cellist from the West Coast, and Gail Lange, a pianist from Canada. The results of your voting were extraordinarily close: Dave received 634 votes; Gail, 625; and Beth, 618. The historic closeness of the vote indicated to the Board that the membership agreed that these candidates were eminently qualified for Board service. We felt that the election outcome was a mandate to have all three of these candidates serve on the Board. David and Gail were elected to the Board, but to honor that clear election mandate, the Board has used the “appointment” option given to it in the SAA By-laws to appoint Beth to the Board. On behalf of the Board, I welcome our three new members and look forward to their dedicated service. Let me also thank the three members of the Board who are leaving: Joanne Melvin (who served on the Board for a record nine years during which she was selected to be Secretary, then Chair-elect, then Chair), Daphne Hughes (three years), and Gwendoline Thornblade (three years). All three have contributed to the work of the Board and the Association with great intelligence and devotion and will be greatly missed.

3) Annual Fund Drive

As SAA has expanded its activities, its membership dues (kept at a modest level in order to be inclusive) simply do not cover the cost of the programs, products, and services it provides. Therefore, each year we ask the membership make a voluntary, tax-deductible donation to the Annual Fund. This year, the Annual Fund is being chaired by the Board’s Chair-elect, Diane Schroeder. She has designed a very personal method for soliciting those donations. In addition, there is an exciting incentive gift attached to the Annual Fund. A committee of three Board members (Teri Einfeldt, Gwendoline Thornblade, and myself) asked noted artists who grew up in the Suzuki Method to release individual tracks from previously recorded performances for inclusion on a CD. The response from those artists was overwhelming, providing us with enough excellent music to fill two CDs. We chose a diverse program entitled “A Celebration of Excellence,” and if all goes well with this first CD, we expect to produce a second CD of a similar nature for subsequent fund drives. For this year’s drive, anyone donating $75 or more will receive “A Celebration of Excellence” as a gift. Making a donation to the Annual Fund is the only way to obtain the CD since it is not for purchase. I guarantee you’ll love this set of pieces so brilliantly performed by world-class musicians with Suzuki backgrounds.

Thanks for reading this column, thanks for your participation in SAA, and thanks for your support in the upcoming Annual Fund Drive. I can’t tell you how honored I feel to be serving as your Board Chair. Please feel free to contact me by email with any questions or comments about the work of the Board and the Association.