KEYS Unlocks Futures
Music lessons inspire many to give,
so others can play.
By Deborah MacFadden, Wilton Magazine, March-April, 2011
Without music, life would be a mistake. —Nietzsche
Wilton musician Rob Silvan is a busy man. With a flourishing career as a piano teacher and performer for over 30 years and director of music at Talmadge Hill Church in Darien for 15, Silvan has a full plate by anyone’s standards. Yet, in 2004, with an abundance of musical commitments, as well as his own nuptials on the horizon, Silvan added another page to his long list of engagements—designing a music program for kids.
The result was KEYS, or Kids Empowered by Your Support, which brings music lessons—for piano, violin, cello, and classical guitar—free of charge to under-served students of Bridgeport’s public schools.
(Read the full article in the March-April 2011 issue of Wilton Magazine) |
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'KEYS' to Success: Bridgeport Youth Take StageOne
By Michelle Koufopoulos, Minuteman News Center, Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Think of your fingers as walking,” Claudia Cali urged the young student seated at the piano as he skillfully ran through a practice song. A small group of children clustered around him listening intently, waiting for their own turns at the piano. From a room behind the stage, voices rose and fell through the familiar lyrics of Do-Re-Mi. The occasional burst of laughter echoed across StageOne, Fairfield Theatre Company’s Sanford Street location, as the students exuberantly answered questions and coaxed each other on. “Let’s see your bow,” Cali requested with a smile; the young performer bowed smartly at the waist, before breaking into his own grin.
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$7,500 Challenge Grant Awarded KEYS
The Fairfield County Community Foundation has awarded a $7500 challenge grant to Kids Empowered by Your Support, (KEYS) to expand its private lesson program for elementary school children in Bridgeport, CT.
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THE 'KEYS' TO THE FUTURE
Wilton Man's Nonprofit Empowers Children Through Music
NORWALK, Posted on 09/13/2009, By LAUREN MYLO, Hour Staff Writer
Every week, Norwalk music instructor Claudia Cali drives to Bridgeport and teaches piano classes in a stairwell. She's become well known in Beardsley School, and students who have passed by will often wait until she's done with a lesson before running up and asking if "Miss Claudia" can teach them piano too. Cali is one of 10 teachers who instruct students who wouldn't otherwise have access to a musical education through KEYS, Kids Empowered By Your Support, a nonprofit founded by Wiltonian Rob Silvan five years ago. The program has grown from four students to more than eighty in first through eighth grade in Bridgeport schools.
Beardsley doesn't have a music classroom, like many Bridgeport schools where budgets for the arts have been slashed, but KEYS donated a piano to the school, and Cali said...
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KEYS to Success
Program provides children with private music lessons
by Joel Weickgenant Stamford Advocate, Sunday December 4, 2005
BRIDGEPORT - In a dimly lit stairwell at Columbus Elementary School in Bridgeport, a Westport-based piano instructor teaches young students – 15 minutes at a time – on an electronic keyboard. The notes echo off cold walls. Occasionally, other children rumble through the stairwell, which Westport-based instructor Julie Chen said makes some pupils shy. The children, who come from working families in poor areas, are getting something they could not otherwise afford – private musical instructions using the Suzuki method, one of the best money can buy.
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