PYP alumnus Charles Crabtree’s 2019 Fundraising Breakfast Speech

Posted on March 22, 2019

Thank you to everyone who attended our annual Meet the Musicians Fundraising Breakfast on March 20, 2019. French horn coach and PYP alumnus Charles Crabtree (2009) was our guest speaker at the event. Below please find a transcription of his speech.

Good morning everyone.  I am honored to be here to share with you my experience of the power of music to change lives.

These days, I’m third horn in the Vancouver Symphony and I recently played horn for the International London tour company of Wicked. I have Master’s Degrees in both performance and solo horn from the Conservatorio Della Svizzera Italiana.

But that’s now…back when I was a kid, I first picked up the horn in 5th grade band at Laurelhurst because it looked so funny, but something about it was very familiar. As it turned out, there had been a picture of my grandfather holding his French horn next to my bed throughout my whole childhood. I’d never noticed the horn, just his awesome auburn hair and beard!

When I picked up that horn I also had no idea that both my aunts Ellen and Marie also played in PYP, one on horn! Aunt Ellen played cello under Avshalomov and Aunt Marie was Gershkovitch’s last horn principal and Avshalomov’s first. Grandpa, former 3rd horn of the Oregon Symphony (then called the Portland Symphony) and former teacher of PYP alum Roger Kaza, was the horn and brass section coach for PYP.  Aunt Ellen was also married to the grandson of Ernest Bloch, a composer who had a long relationship with PYP and lived the last years of his life on the Oregon coast, and whose “Schelomo” was just performed at the Schnitzer concert a few weeks ago.  So I guess I was genetically destined to play horn for PYP.

After 2 years of band class, and 1 year of private lessons, I made it into PYCO (PYP’s second orchestra) in 2003, under Ms. Mei-Ann Chen. I studied horn with Larry Johnson in middle and high school. By 2006 I was seated as co-principal horn in PYP. Chamber music, horn lessons, and PYP were the only things that kept me going through high school. Every day I would just do my best to make it through those 8 hours, until I could go play horn and hang out with my music friends.  Music was what I was, where I found myself and my tribe.

I graduated high school in 2009 and went to Europe to continue my studies. When I auditioned for my conservatory in Lugano, thanks to PYP theory classes I got the highest score on the theory placement test of any American high school student to date.

I moved back home last summer, and won the Vancouver Symphony’s open position. Because of my connection to Larry Johnson, Carolyn Talarr, PYP’s Community Programs Coordinator, contacted me to possibly coach new horn players in a middle school, with students who didn’t have the same opportunities and musical connections that I did. She told me that in the last few years, through conductor visits and her ongoing communication with Cynthia Navarro, the young band director there, PYP has been building a relationship with Clear Creek Middle School in Gresham.  Clear Creek is the poorest school in the Gresham/Barlow school district: 86% of the students qualify as ‘disadvantaged’, and everyone in the school gets free or reduced meals. 

Cynthia is strengthening and growing the band program there to become a point of pride for the school.  At the same time, she is also quite open about her lack of skills on a few instruments, the horn among them, so unfortunately, the horn section had not kept pace with the rest of the band. And needless to say, with this level of poverty, private lessons aren’t a possibility.

When I got the call I thought it sounded interesting, but I had no idea how deeply rewarding it would be for everyone involved. 
A first clue came when I went to demonstrate for the 7th grade class.  One whiff of Siegfried’s horn call and the whole band wanted to switch to horn!  Because of the few instruments Clear Creek had available for students to use, I was able to choose only two students to switch from trumpet. I picked one who was a natural in the high range and one who had obvious potential in the low range, my idea being that they wouldn’t compete. Boy how wrong I was!

Tate, Marissa and I have had biweekly meetings since October, and of course we’ve had to come up with creative solutions to problems, like students who live in apartment buildings not being able to practice, and we were assigned initially to a sports cage stuck in a loud HVAC area between the school’s gyms!  Now we’re meeting in an actual classroom, since the Principal has witnessed the preliminary results, so it’s much better.  Despite these challenges, both Tate and Marissa jumped in wholeheartedly and with more than a little bit of competition despite my best intentions. They are challenging each other to more and more growth, to the point that they are both farther along than I had been in my first year, or expected for anyone’s first year, and are zooming ahead.

In January, Marissa said “If we hadn’t worked with you this year I never would have decided to continue with horn through high school, but now I will. Coaching is my favorite time of the whole week!” This from a girl who didn’t bother showing up for concerts the year before. Now, however, in my opinion, music can take her to high school, college, and wherever else she wants it to. 

And it’s not just my students on horn (four more started in January, thanks to PYP covering needed repairs on two more horns); the 17 kids who are learning flute with Zach Galatis of the Oregon Symphony are experiencing similar benefits. Zach is here today and if you talk to him, I’m sure you’ll hear similar stories.

Even more important than their impressive growth on their instruments, these kids are getting the chance to experience meaningful, visible success, which breeds passion, which breeds persistence, which breeds more success that extends out to the rest of their lives.  The band director wrote to us that the attitudes of the students who are getting coaching “have completely changed; they walk into the classroom with pride.  They’ve more than caught up with the rest of the band, and both sat up so straight at the fall concert and played loud and clear. They’re learning that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to.”

Their middle school experience, like my life at their age, has improved dramatically because of the opportunity really to engage with music, thanks to PYP.  It’s now a part of who they are, where they are finding themselves and their tribe.  Who knows, Tate and Marissa might even join a PYP ensemble in a year or two.

Dr. Atherton, the principal, is already finding quantifiable benefits, even though the program only started in October. Like many administrators, he’s a stats man, and reported very enthusiastically that “The participating students have improved attendance and academics and reduced behavior incidents in contrast to their peers.”  Those parameters are extremely significant, especially among kids at risk, as essentially every student at Clear Creek is.  Both Dr. Atherton and Cynthia are very excited to try to expand the program out to other instruments in coming years.  I am thrilled to pass on something that enriched my life so deeply, to be part of these students’ path to excellence and to see how their shifts in attitude are influencing not only their lives but the whole ensemble as well, and it all started with the powerful combination of school music education and PYP.

Thank you for the opportunity to share my story with you. As you can tell, I am very grateful for my journey in music and PYP clearly played a major role in making it possible. Today, I am motivated to provide children with the same opportunity as I was given by PYP. As I leave you today…I am respectfully asking for your help. Your financial support of PYP is integral to exposing children to the power of music. As we enter the next part of our agenda, I encourage you to give generously knowing that PYP is making a difference in thousands of children’s lives. With your help, we will reach even more.  Thank you on behalf of the children that came before me and those yet to come!