Music Program

A range of voices will rise in defense of elementary school music, small class sizes, programs for the gifted and a raise in salaries beginning at tonight's first public hearing on the 1996-1997 county school budget.In past years, those voices would have asked for more. Now, they are working to maintain the status quo and, possibly, competing against each other's interests in the toughest year anyone can remember."We're not asking for anything to be added," said Ralph Blevins, president of the Carroll County Education Association.

When the Howard County Arts Council announced th winners of its 1992 Howie Awards earlier this month, it only validated the base requirement that those chosen must demonstrate an enduring commitment to the arts.Dance company founder Eva Anderson, educator Gene Miller and the Columbia Association are this year's winners in the categories of outstanding artist, arts educator and business supporter of the arts. Previous Howie award winners include Toby Orenstein and the Rouse Co."It's meant to recognize a long-term achievement in the arts," said Howard County Arts Council Executive Director Mary Toth.

When Marin Alsop began her tenure as music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra last year, she put a high priority on developing educational projects that could bring together the institution and the surrounding community, especially those parts not being reached by the orchestra. Yesterday, Alsop announced the launch of OrchKids, an after-school music program spearheaded by the BSO, in conjunction with a partnership of city organizations, and pledged $100,000 of her own money to support it. Inspired by the success of the countrywide El Sistema program in Venezuela, which provides musical training and social outlets for several hundred thousand low-income children, OrchKids will begin as a pilot program with about 25 first-graders at Harriet Tubman Elementary in West Baltimore, starting in September.

Taymeko Matthews' eyes lit up when she saw the collection of music instruments on the Georgetown East Elementary School stage. Someone placed a violin in the fourth-grader's hands, and it was as if holiday season had descended earlier than usual. "It was like a brand-new toy that I really wanted," said Taymeko, a member of the Georgetown East band and orchestra, which on Wednesday received a surprise donation of 32 instruments, cases and accessories — valued at more than $25,000 — from the area's new local branch of the financial services firm Fidelity Investments.

There's a new face at Arnolia United Methodist Church - but a familiar face to the area. Keith Derrickson recently became the church's director of music, and brought with him years of experience and creativity. A Baltimore County Public Schools music teacher from 1978 until 2008 - at Overlea, Hereford and Parkville high schools, as well as Pleasant Plains Elementary - he most recently served as an interim professor at Towson University teaching music education classes and serving as a student intern supervisor.

She's our North Star," Gerald Heeger, president of University of Maryland University College, says of Pikesville's Doris Patz. The North Star is the most recognizable of all stars, not unlike Patz in Maryland's art world. Patz's decades of networking among Maryland artists, art organizations and people has resulted in a music program, an art collection, a mansion, a regent's scholarship and a writing contest. Patz was thrust into the fine arts arena through her music in Pittsburgh, where, as a child, she played violin and viola.

After 22 years of distinguished music making, the Annapolis Brass Quintet will take the stage for the final time this weekend.When trumpeters David Cran and Robert Suggs, French horn player Sharon Tiebert and trombonists Wayne Wells and Robert Posten appear in concert at Key Auditorium Sunday evening, they will bring the curtain down on a pioneering ensemble that has brought the excitement of brass chamber music alive to audiences all over the world."

Back in the 1970s, when minimalism started shaking up the music world in a big way, a common complaint against the repetitive, reiterative style was that it settled for effect and mood over genuine substance. That argument, weak to begin with, couldn't hold up as the three most prominent minimalists kept using the genre's persistent motor rhythms and supposedly confining melodic and harmonic ranges to propel very meaningful ideas in increasingly distinctive, provocative ways. The haunting, Gandhi-inspired opera Satyagraha by Philip Glass in 1980 is just one example; the stunning orchestral waves of Harmonielehre by John Adams in 1985 is another.

Financing law closes loopholes aiding the rich Our courts have upheld the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform law, but Steve Chapman's column "Outlawing political speech" (Opinion Commentary, Dec. 16) perpetuates myths about it. The act doesn't prohibit the American Civil Liberties Union from producing an ad that criticizes House Speaker Dennis Hastert. It doesn't prohibit anyone from criticizing anyone. As Mr. Chapman admits (in his 12th paragraph), all it requires is that the ACLU form a political action committee and reveal whose money it is using for the ads. Countless political groups, of all stripes, do that.

SMITH ISLAND --Michael Lisicky had the kids of the Ewell School right where he wanted them yesterday - in their classroom soaking up every note, every passage, even a few honks and squawks thrown in for laughs by his Trio La Milpa. Unlike other music education programs that the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra oboist has conducted, this one couldn't have been any cozier. The entire school - 14 students from pre-K through seventh grade - took part. The children listened to the oboe trio while sitting at their desks in their one-room schoolhouse here in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay. None has ever heard a symphony orchestra.