[Members] Roberta Guaspari to Give Masterclass at Cornerstone Schools April 8 - 9, 2011

[Rick Dapprich, Editor]

The Harlem music teacher whose real life story inspired the  Academy  
Award-nominated film Music of the Heart starring Meryl Streep, will  
pay a special visit to Detroit to share her expertise and passion with  
local music students and their teachers.

An internationally renowned music pedagogue, Roberta Guaspari was also  
the subject of the Oscar-nominated documentary Small Wonders. Guaspari  
and her son, cellist Nick Tzavaras of the Shanghai String Quartet,   
will lead two days of string workshops and hands-on clinics at the  
Cornerstone Schools on Friday, April 8 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., and  
Saturday, April 9 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. An Informance, a finale  
concert featuring all participants, will take place on Saturday, April  
9 at 5 p.m.

Guaspari will work with string students from Cornerstone during her  
visit, as well as from schools and universities across metro Detroit,  
while also focusing on urban strategies and approaches for Detroit's  
music educators on the front line.  In particular, she hopes to  
reinforce music programs at the elementary school level, whose success  
lays the all-important groundwork for middle and high school  
programs.  With music education in schools becoming increasingly rare,  
Guaspari hopes to support and draw attention to Detroit's successful  
programs that are making a difference in children's lives.
Guaspari's visit is sponsored, in part, by the Michigan State  
University College of Music through funds provided by Jack and Dottie  
Withrow. The event celebrates a collaboration between the MSU College  
of Music and Cornerstone which began in 2008.  Annual masterclasses  
and workshops presented at Cornerstone by MSU faculty and music  
education students in training have helped strengthen mutual skills in  
the areas of piano, strings, early childhood music education and voice.

Armed with music degrees from universities in New York and Boston,  
violinist Roberta Guaspari began teaching music in East Harlem in the  
1970's. With a combination of toughness and determination,
she inspired students, and their initially skeptical parents. Over the  
next several decades, her program developed and galvanized a  
community. When funding was cut in 1991, parents, city leaders and  
philanthropists rallied to save it. The result was the first   
Fiddlefest fundraiser at Carnegie Hall, which attracted the attention  
of world-class musicians including Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern,  
Midori, Quincy Jones and Mark O’Connor, among many others.  Funding  
for Guaspari's program was restored and new attention was brought to  
the importance of music education.
Today, Guaspari continues her work by leading the program Opus 118 at  
the Harlem School of Music and serves as an advocate and ambassador  
for the preservation of music in schools. In the past year, she has  
been featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams: Making a  
Difference,  the New York Post and Voguemagazine, to name a few.  Opus  
118 students play for local hospitals and special events while the  
faculty brings music education to after-school programs and early  
childhood music education to Head Start Programs.

Ernestine Sanders, President/CEO of Cornerstone schools said,  
"Cornerstone Schools is honored to host Roberta Guaspari's Masterclass  
event. The students at Cornerstone Schools and other Detroit area  
schools who are participating in the two-day workshop are truly  
fortunate to have the opportunity to meet and learn from such a  
talented, passionate and inspirational woman."

String educators, students, parents and the general public are invited  
to observe the Robert Guaspari Masterclass event.  Attendance is free  
but seating is limited.  To RSVP contact Kathy Ferris at (313)  
892-1860 ext 210 or (248) 559-9342 or by email kkferris69 at att.net. 
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