Readers have been vocal about the return of music to public schools, featured Dec. 2 in the Enquirer (“The bands are back”).

        “It's been the topic of conversation in our music community all day today,” e-mailed Dan Herbert, vice president of Willis Music Co., Florence. “ "Music makes you smarter' — I like to think so, but what I do know is it made a difference in my life.”

Mike Folz is back treaching the band at Cheviot School. (Tony Jones photo) | ZOOM |

        “Your coverage of all aspects of a total music curriculum was greatly appreciated,” e-mailed Dick Wesp, music coordinator for Forest Hills Schools District. “Quite often, people think of music in terms of band. Your inclusion of strings, chorus and general music facts was very important. I also appreciated the regional and national data you included.”

        The student profiles drove home “the importance and value of music in the total experiences and education of each child,” he added.

        “Hopefully, this will get some people in high places thinking. Maybe even providing "food-for-thought' for (Cincinnati councilman) Jim Tarbell's new Culture Committee.”

        Alan Coleman, a retired teacher for Cincinnati Public Schools, was glad the article addressed problems in city school music programs. As for Withrow High adding a part-time band teacher, he says:

        “Twenty hours per week and tentative funding indicates that the district isn't serious about building a program. If that were so, instrumental programs would be started at the schools that feed into Withrow High School. To start beginning band at the high school level doesn't allow for true mastery of a skill — just the basics.”

        Jump-starting music with VH1: Christmas came early this year for two Cincinnati Public Schools: the Academy of World Languages in Evanston and Sands Montessori, West End. They each received $25,000 in musical instruments from VH1 Save the Music Foundation in October.

        As public schools restore music after three decades of cutbacks, financially strapped school districts are turning to foundations for help.

        At Cheviot School, music teacher Michael Folz started a band two years ago with help from VH1 Save the Music Foundation, Buddy Rogers Music and Time Warner Cable.

        Now that he has $25,000 in new instruments, Mr. Folz has another challenge: finding class time for band during the school day, a requirement of the grant. Because of scheduling, there are no periods for band in city schools in grades K-8. He teaches during lunchtime, sometimes clearing out the teachers' lounge and bringing in music stands.

        “I have it during the school day for as much as I can, and we have an after-school program. It would be a shame for them to take the money away,” Mr. Folz says.

        Since 1997, VH1 Save the Music Foundation has donated more than $17 million in musical instruments for 250,000 children in 750 public schools nationwide. About $450,000 has gone to Cincinnati schools.

        To give to VH1 Save the Music, call (888) 841-4687, or write to VH1 Save the Music, 1515 Broadway, 20th Floor New York, NY 10036. $25 buys a recorder; $100 pays for a guitar. More information: vh1.com/insidevh1/savethemus.

        More music in schools: There was not enough space to mention the many fine music programs in Tristate schools and the inspiring students and teachers I met while writing the Dec. 2 article.

        In Wyoming schools in the past decade, the music budget has doubled, and the district, which has 1,900 students, has built a new performing arts center.

        For 30 years, strings teacher Alberta Schneider has praised and pushed her students at Wyoming's middle school. She knows that few of them will become professional musicians. It's about “sharing my passion and joy for music with all my students,” she says.

        More than 300 students in grades 4-8 play a stringed instrument. That middle school experience reaps rewards at the high school, where students win top honors in city, state and national contests.

        In 1999, Wyoming was one of eight districts nationwide singled out for its music and arts by the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.

        And at Lakota East High School, where choral teacher Malana Turner's class was electric with energy one morning last spring, I met CharKeita Anderson, 18. She was one of a few African-American high schoolers in a student body of 1,500. Music, she says, helped her fit in.

        “All through high school, I just wanted to be equal with everybody. A lot of times people won't let you do that, but if you have one talent, that will open the door,” she said.

        “It was special that I could sing. It made me stand out — more than I already stood out. A lot of people were just, 'Oh that's that black girl.' But for me, it was, "That's the black girl who can sing.' ”

        Kunzel's debut by the Bay: Cincinnati Pops maestro Erich Kunzel made his debut with San Francisco Opera, leading Franz Lehar's operetta The Merry Widow last month in the War Memorial Opera House. Chronicle critic Allan Ulrich took apart the show but complimented Mr. Kunzel, who “conducted with empathy for his singers and much relish of the Viennese idiom.”

        “(Opera) was where I made my professional debut, when I was 22 years old at Santa Fe Opera,” says Mr. Kunzel, in town to conduct the Pops' holiday show. “It was a heartwarming thing for me to be there, conducting on the very spot where (Pierre Monteux) conducted.”

        Mr. Kunzel studied with Mr. Monteux, onetime music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

        The operetta is the final production by San Francisco's outgoing artistic director Lotfi Monsouri. It stars Frederica von Stade, who is approaching the end of her career on the opera stage.

        PBS-TV and BBC Worldwide taped performances for telecast on the “Great Performance Series,” to be aired in 2002.

        The Merry Widow runs through Jan. 19. Tickets: (415) 864-3330 or sfopera.org.

        Papa Jarvi back in swing: “He's back,” says Paavo Jarvi, music director of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, whose father, Neeme Jarvi, had surgery to repair an aneurysm of a vertebral artery in July. Mr. Jarvi Sr. made an emotional return to his orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Thanksgiving weekend. The capacity audience stood and cheered the instant he set foot on stage.

        “By the time this concert was over, any lingering doubt of Jarvi's recovery was gone, exorcised by the pounding, intricate rhythms of The Rite of Spring in an edge-of-the-seat thriller of a performance,” Detroit News critic Lawrence B. Johnson wrote.

        Der Kandidat: Could Paavo Jarvi, the CSO's new young music director, take over another orchestra? He's a hot item in Munich, where Cincinnatian James Levine is leaving to go to the Boston Symphony.

        After Mr. Jarvi's October concerts with the Munich Philharmonic, the Suddeutsche Zeitung wrote, “One thing is clear: If the question of Levine's successor becomes acute, Paavo Jarvi is a candidate. Without a doubt.”

        Mr. Jarvi, who is guest-conducting in Paris and Germany this month, will return to the CSO March 7-9. Tickets: 381-3300 or cincinnatisymphony.org.

        KUDOS: Students at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music are winning top jobs in major orchestras: Violinist Sergei Khvorostuhin won the principal second violin chair in the Gurzenich Orchestra in Cologne, Germany, under Mr. Conlon; Kun Dong is the new assistant principal second violinist in the CSO; and Friederike Rust has won the first violin chair in the Hannover State Radio Orchestra in Germany.
       Contact Janelle Gelfand at 768-8382; fax: 768-8330; e-mail: jgelfand@enquirer.com.

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