Classic for the Ages, 2011

CLASSIC FOR THE AGES, 2011

Excitement and music were in the air at the Dumbarton Library this fall when members of the Richmond (VA) Chapter of The Links, Incorporated, gathered to hear musical selections from Ivana Daniels and Michael Settles, Jr.

The two middle school students are the inaugural participants in the chapter’s Classics Through the Ages program, which aims to cultivate appreciation for and continued study of classical art among black youth through training, mentorship and performance.

Daniels, 13, a seventh grader at Lucille M. Brown Middle School in Richmond, aspires to become a lawyer like her mom. But right now “the most important thing to me is my schoolwork and my music,” she told the small audience of Links and family members before performing Tribal Chant, Hatikvah, 1812 Overture and Gigue.

For her, playing the flute provides a creative outlet as well as an emotional one. “It calms me down and gets rid of frustrations,” she says.

Her mother Angela agrees that there is power in the musical practice. “It’s very relaxing,” she says. “The breathing involved with playing the flute is good. It encourages you to take the breaths and get the oxygen flowing.”

Settles, a seventh grader at Binford Middle School, expressed excitement about Classics Through the Ages because it relates to the acting, dancing and piano playing he hopes to do professionally when he grows up.

He played Beethoven’s Fur Elise, a piece he learned by ear, and his own creation Journeys, which he composed for his mom when he was in the 5th grade. “He was experimenting with chords and different kinds of music and I told him to write something for me,” says his mother Terry Gates. “Every time he plays it, I cry.”

Gates says Classics Through the Ages will create more fond reminiscences with her son. “To be able to experience the arts with your child at this age is wonderful,” she says. “These are memories that you’ll always have outside of fussing over homework.”

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