The mother of a student at New York’s Institute for Collaborative Education (ICE) has recently taken advantage of an opinion column at the Huffington Post to praise her son’s music teacher, a musician who encourages his students to experiment, teaches them song writing and organises school music trips to Europe.
The article, entitled ‘To Roy, With Love’, traces a loving profile of the eponymous Roy Nathanson, who couples a prolific and well-acknowledged jazz career with a position teaching music at the publically funded ICE, where he helps dozens of children and teenagers discover, develop and refine their love for music.
As the school’s music director (and, for a long time, its sole music teacher), Nathanson is at liberty to organise new and engaging learning experiences for his students. According to the author of the column, the jazzman not only steers students towards their instrument of choice, but he also teaches them how to write their own pieces and has, over the past six years, organised no less than three school music trips, all to Europe, with all expenses paid by Roy himself. He has also coaxed some of his more prominent musician friends, including Debbie Harry from Blondie and free-jazzman John Zorn, into sharing the stage with his students at fundraising concerts and school demonstrations.
Although it was a mother for whose son Nathanson has gone above and beyond, who wrote the column from a personal point of view, it nevertheless succeeds in putting across Nathanson’s best qualities and painting an adequate portrait of the man.
The Institute for Cooperative Education is currently home to no more than four hundred and seventy five students, and is rivalled by the world-renowned New York School of Performing Arts.
To book school music trips, contact School Travel Service at http://www.ststravel.co.uk/study-tour or call them on 0870 240 6828.
