Learning Folk Music Is A Chance

To Travel For Some Students

By Eliza Hallabeck

Folk music is not just music at Hawley School, it is also a teaching method.

Diana Brandt, the music teacher for the school, is part of a global organization that teaches students to read and write music with folk songs from their country. The method brought her and her students across the country in March for a national choir.

In March, the Organization of American Kodály Educators sent Ms Brandt, three of her students, and the parents of the students to Denver, Colo., to perform in the Zoltan Kodály national children’s choir. The children — Emma Wolfman, Sean Dalton, and Laken Hughes — are all fourth grade students at Hawley.

Ms Brandt is the president of the Organization of American Kodály Educators for Connecticut. She said she nominated students in October to go to the national choir, and these three were chosen by the state. Fifteen students went from Connecticut in total, according to Ms Brandt.

“Each teacher can select six students,” she said.

After being nominated, the students record CDs that are then judged by other teachers from the state. Ms Brandt said she had nothing further to do with her students being chosen.

“They did terrific,” said Ms Brandt. “They performed very well.”

She said her students worked hard to be ready for the national choir. In Denver the students performed seven songs, which included “Who Can Sail” and “Laughing and Shouting For Joy.”

The Organization of American Kodály Educators bases its teaching methods on Zoltan Kodály, who was a Hungarian composer and musician. He used folk music to instruct students reading and writing music. Other countries, like the United States, that use this teaching method today use the same practices, but they focus on folk music from their own country.

“It’s basically doing a lot of musical literacy and writing with folk songs,” said Ms Brandt, who earned her undergraduate degree from UConn and is currently working on her graduate degree at the Hartt School of Music.