Save The Music | News, Sports, Jobs – Marietta Times

WILLIAMSTOWN –The mission of VH1’s Save The Music Foundation is to create equity of access around the country so that financial barriers don’t keep students from having a musical education.

Chiho Feindler serves as the foundation’s chief program officer but doesn’t always get to see the results of her work from her office in New York.

But after serving as a judge for the West Virginia Marching Band Invitational Championship over the weekend, she traveled to seven schools across six counties Monday with state Department of Arts, Culture and History Curator Randall Reid-Smith to see some of the bands the foundation has supported in action. Their tour wrapped up at Williamstown Middle/High School.

“The best part of my job is to be able to see really firsthand what the instruments are doing in the students’ lives,” Feindler said.

Reid-Smith came to the school in December to announce a $40,000 donation from the foundation. It purchased 11 clarinets, eight flutes, six trumpets, three alto saxophones, a complete concert drumline, bells, music stands and educational materials, plus four trombones that are in the mail, he said Monday.

Band Director Jed Corra said the instruments can be used by students whose families might not be able to purchase or rent their own.

He has tried to never let that stop a child from participating before, but “now I don’t have to give them instruments that are falling apart,” he said.

The program is geared toward pre-kindergarten through eighth-graders, so most of the combined middle/high school band isn’t using them, but they’ll help build the band in the future.

Feindler said in the nine years she’s judged at the marching band competition, she’s noticed bands getting bigger.

Corra is in his fifth year at the helm in Williamstown. When he started, there were 45 to 50 kids total, from fifth grade to 12th, in the program. Now, there are at least 100, he said.

After seeing the band’s Muppet-themed show at the state competition Saturday, Feindler and Reid-Smith were able to watch the students run through it again Monday and speak to them afterward. Their time was appreciated by junior field commanders Rivion Bennett and Sara Jung.

“I was honestly very impressed to (see) that they really cared to come out,” Bennett said.

“I think it’s awesome that they take the time,” said Jung.

Feindler said band provides benefits beyond the ability to learn and perform music.

“I think the band is definitely giving (a) huge sense of belonging,” she said, “which I think is hard to do in the math classroom sometimes.”

Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com.