Capítulo Afiliado Spotlight: Asociación Suzuki de Massachusetts

Suzuki Association chapter affiliates take the SAA’s regional messages home with them, bringing our philosophy and goals to their local community of teachers, students, and parents. In this series, we highlight the work of chapter affiliate leaders, starting in New England with the Suzuki Association of Massachusetts.

Before taking on a leadership role, Donny Landers IV studied music education and film composition at Berklee College of Music. He went to graduate school to study classical composition at Longy Conservatory of Bard College, after which he taught music education in public schools while expanding a private studio. Now, Donny has a thriving studio with more than 55 students, which he balances alongside the responsibility of leading his chapter.

How long have you been president of the Suzuki Association of Massachusetts’ board of directors? What do you teach?

First, thank you so much for this opportunity and for the work you’re doing on behalf of the Suzuki Association of the Americas. My role as president started in September of last year. I was serving as the clerk of our association for two and a half years prior. My experience as a Suzuki teacher started in 2016 when I took my first training courses. I teach piano in the city of Newton, Massachusetts. But of course, as most teachers are right now, I’m teaching entirely remotely from my home studio.

I imagine it was a difficult year for you to come in and make this transition. Can you talk to me about what some of those challenges were in your first year having to completely rethink the way we’re teaching and operating?

You’re absolutely right. This year brought some unexpected last-minute decisions, such as the cancellation of our 2020 in-person festival, which, unfortunately, was scheduled for the very same weekend that the COVID-19 shutdown occurred. After that point, we have also been starting initiatives related to the renewed inspiration surrounding Black Lives Matter and diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in general. Planning an online festival is a first for us as well, which has brought its own challenges. At the same time, however, it has brought opportunities to engage a larger geographic area, and even extend the visibility of our organization beyond state lines.

Are you engaging a larger geographic in terms of both students and faculty?

Absolutely. Our March festival typically engages students and teachers from the greater Boston metropolitan area. But there has always been the issue of travel and accessibility. This year, that is not a preclusion. We’re expecting to have more attendance from Western Massachusetts as well as other New England states. In terms of faculty, we have invited clinicians from South America and the Dali Quartet, with members from Venezuela and Puerto Rico.

That’s great to hear. It might be too early for you to say, but have you found an online institute is also bringing more diversity in terms of socioeconomic status or race?

That is certainly our hope, and we are offering student scholarships to this specific end as an association. But I haven’t seen the proof in the pudding, so to speak. We have much to improve upon as an organization in this regard.

You mentioned that you’ve been starting initiatives related to the Black Lives Matter movement. I was wondering if you could go into the specifics of those—what types of new projects are you implementing to improve diversity and accessibility?

First we held a special board meeting during the summer, a time when our board usually does not convene, to discuss the current events and to connect the Suzuki philosophy to this sentiment. And of course there is so much overlap in that all children can, and all people should have access to this form of education. So our association drafted a statement to our membership in support of Black Lives Matter. We made a point to send this out and also mention it at our annual meeting, which took place in October of 2020, which was very well attended. Since then, we have taken our first steps to engage a diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility consultant to help us prepare a survey that will be sent out to members of our association. The survey will help us better understand the current diversity and accessibility of Suzuki education in our area and guide us in determining the best use of our time and resources moving forward to improve these aspects in the future.

Those all sound like really important steps. Talk to me about the move to remote learning. Have there been any positives that you’ve seen come out of online teaching?

Certainly. I can say as a piano teacher who spent some time teaching in students’ homes and also some time teaching in a studio that now, each of my lessons has the benefit of two pianos—my piano, and my student’s piano. Of course this is the ideal for all my students. And that has helped us have more musical conversations and less verbal conversations. Also, as I’m sure most Suzuki teachers will agree, having our parents so heavily invested and involved at the outset of this pandemic made navigating all the technical issues much easier—having a third person to be our helper along the way. It’s hard to imagine going back to in person teaching too, in some ways. I’ve developed a sense of comfort. I almost forget that I’m in a room alone looking through the camera. I know, however, that when the day comes for us to meet in person again, it will be a very emotional moment.

Tell me about your online festival. What sort of events will you be featuring? What are the logistics of organizing an online institute, and what are you looking forward to?

I’m looking forward to seeing so many students in one place at the same time. We are planning master classes by visiting clinicians. We’re looking forward to offering enrichment courses that are very well suited for an online format, such as workshops in Latin and Caribbean rhythms, blues guitar, and improvisation. I think the biggest benefit of our online festival will be our visiting clinicians, who will provide a new face for students who have been interfacing with their smaller teacher studios for the better part of a year now. I should also mention that our association has partnered with Teacher Trainer Caroline Fraser to plan an exciting summer piano Suzuki Festival, which will offer online teacher training to teachers across the region, as well as opportunities for students and parents from many countries to interact in a Suzuki music setting.

That sounds fantastic.

We’re very excited about that as well. Some important considerations as far as planning online festivals – as you referred to – are preparing the Zoom settings in advance, such as recording, permissions and security of the meetings. It’s also important to find little ways for our students and teachers to feel that we are more together than we are alone, such as sending out t-shirts in advance of the festival that can be worn during the event as well as other physical materials that will help us feel more of a concrete and tangible sense of community.

Is there anything else we haven’t discussed that you’d like to share with our readers?

Having assumed the role of president in the challenging year 2020, I have even more respect for people across the Americas who are already functioning in these leadership roles in our organization. I have so much respect for the work that Suzuki teachers and their Suzuki families are doing in their communities. I hope that we can take a deep breath and power through the remaining months of these unsettling times, and come out on the other end feeling even more connected than we were before.