4/9/2023 0 Comments Orchestra strings theory![]() Whether eight-year-olds with twelve-inch fiddles or alumni thirty years out with professional careers in music, everybody calls the boss "Mrs. Kitchen "demands discipline," says cellist and DUSS alumna Brenda Neece. Unlike their casually attired families in the audience, the performers are dressed in dapper white shirts and black trousers or skirts. Presently, the diminutive but poised members of Beginner I Ensemble are whisked offstage to make way for Beginner II Ensemble, evenly split between boys and girls, who render a unison version of "Camptown Races" at about one-quarter tempo. Like the rest of DUSS students, "when they perform, it's amazing how well they do, the poise," says Shelley Livingston, assistant conductor of the string school's Youth Symphony Orchestra, the senior-most group. Kitchen teaches the beginners, like the four little boys who lead off the concert. "We're trying to teach them to read," she continues, "to play in tune, to play in a group, to have a sensitivity to rhythm, sensitivity to pitch, appreciation for sound, and an appreciation for the group experience." When I came here, there was no string teaching-no string teaching done well-for children. "This school has seen thousands of people go through it, thousands," says Kitchen. Yet the marathon concert is neither unusual nor valedictory, just one more breathing place on the long upward path to helping the world play, and understand, music. These four decades represent a signal milestone for the school's founder and director, Dorothy Kitchen-she of "Hiding Song" fame-and an invitation to reflect upon the future. The Duke University String School (DUSS) has begun its fourth and last concert of the spring season, some six hours of performing over the afternoon and evening that mark the school's fortieth anniversary. ![]() '96-best known as Duke's carillonneur-accompanies on a concert grand. The tune is Dorothy Kitchen's "Hiding Song." The tiniest musician, who plays a quarter-size violin, follows with a solo on "Pop! Goes the Weasel." Yards away, looking enisled at center stage, pianist Sam Hammond '68, M.T.S. ![]() ![]() Four little boys with violins crowd onto stage left, forming a tight defensive phalanx, and the three young women who rise to play alongside them whisper to them to spread out. ![]()
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