The Honorable Senator Robert F. Bennet with his daughter, Julie Newton, and Joyce, his wife.
What projects are you involved with at the moment?
As a U.S. Senator I am currently involved in health care, issues of free trade, and other matters in the political arena. I have no current music projects with which I am involved; however I am a member of the National Council of the Arts, appointed as a result of my activities on behalf of the National Endowment for the Arts. I am a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and as such have been involved in funding the National Endowment for the Arts ever since I came to the Senate in 1993.
What is the most satisfying aspect of your career?
The most satisfying part of my activity with respect to the Arts has been my contribution to preserving the National Endowment for the Arts and seeing to it that its budget has increased year by year after having been rather drastically cut. I am in a position to see to it that all of the Arts have received some federal support—not just music but also the dramatic arts, the visual arts and the performing arts.
Do you presently have any contact with the Suzuki method?
I have a lot of contact with the Suzuki method. My wife Joyce teaches at the Levine School in Washington D.C., and my daughter Julie Newton teaches at the Pasadena Conservatory of Music in the Los Angeles area. As a consequence of my wife’s activities I come home from the Senate and walk in to hear flute music coming out of the basement on a regular basis.
When you were asked to be a member of our Honorary Board, what prompted you to say, “Yes”?
I consider it a tremendous honor to be involved with the Suzuki method because I have seen the difference that it has made. My wife was taught to play the flute in a traditional way, but as our children came along we turned to the Suzuki method for them. Our daughter Julie began with the Suzuki method, first on violin and then the cello, and her activity as an adult has been as a player and a Suzuki cello teacher. She has had a fairly significant career as a musician sandwiched in between her marriage and the raising of two children.
What would you like to tell the Suzuki Association?
I am very impressed with the worldwide reach that the Suzuki Association has been able to establish. Going to a Suzuki Institute with my wife and daughter and watching literally hundreds of players of all ages gather and enjoy and perpetuate classical music was a tremendously impressive thing for me, an outsider, to see. I am very familiar with organizations and how they work; I am very familiar with international movements and how they work. I don’t know of many that could compete with the Suzuki Association in the quality of their organizational structure or the rapidity and scope of their international outreach.
