Some believe it’s the brilliance and spunk of Betty Perry that has sustained the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra (MYO). The ensemble’s artistic director and founder would add that it’s the undeniable power of music that makes the MYO conceivable.
“If the arts goes, then society is doomed. Music changed my life. I saw the need to do that for others,” said Perry.
The MYO is celebrating its 20th anniversary and having a formal event Jan. 24, 2016 at 3 p.m. at Hilbert Circle Theatre. On the surface it appears as if it’s a program for kids to learn how to play musical instruments. That’s only a pocket-sized part of what MYO generously gives to area youth.
The MYO is a youth and family development program of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (ISO). The program is designed to use the life skills learned through music instruction to engage youth in activities that discourage at-risk behaviors and keep them committed to staying in school.
This mission is accomplished in six ways: a weekly large ensemble experience, lessons, community performances, parent engagement, community partnerships and college readiness.
Kids from all socioeconomic backgrounds participate in the program.
“For 20 years Betty Perry has coached, encouraged and guided hundreds of students and their families. She demonstrates how music-making, at any age, changes people for the better,” said Martha Lamkin, immediate past chair of the ISO Board of Directors and current chair of the ISO’s MYO 20th anniversary committee.
Perry founded and constructed the program’s curriculum using pivotal experiences from her life. She grew up in the Fort Apache area of the Bronx, New York, in the ’50s and, like most kids her age, wanted to be a Motown singer.
Her impressive academic achievements allowed Perry, formerly Miss Montgomery, to participate in a music program reserved for special students. Her childhood nemesis was also in that class.
“The teacher described the instruments and she chose viola. When he got to me, I said viola. I had no idea what the instrument was, but I was going to play it,” said Perry. “I took the instrument home every day just so I could be better than her. I must’ve become very good, because within a few months, I was invited to the borough youth orchestra.”
Perry said it was hearing German composer George Frideric Handel’s “Water Music” that solidified her decision to fully pursue music. Perry went on to play in the borough orchestra and then an all-city orchestra composed of the best musicians in New York. Through that journey, she met her mentor Freida Hollander, whom she has kept in touch with until Hollander’s recent death.
As a freshman at Walton High School, Perry said Hollander challenged her to learn how to play the violin, an instrument she’d never played before.
Not only did she teach herself to play the violin, but Perry would also teach herself the rest of the string instruments, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments.
At age 15, Perry was teaching orchestral music to young children. She had a natural ability to control a large group of children and teach musical instruments in a fun way.
After attending New York College of Music in the early 1970s, she formed an orchestra made up of the cream of the crop, yet they couldn’t get work. So the wife of Indianapolis-born French horn player, Edward Perry, and soon-to-be MYO founder headed to the Circle City, became the mother of two children and was a homemaker.
Perry gave up music for 11 years. When she picked up instruments once again, she decided to tackle the disproportionality of music education opportunities. In the 1980s, she began teaching music to kids in Indianapolis day care centers.
“I didn’t have a car, so I’d lug instruments with me by bus. In the course of me doing this, I realized the parent component was missing,” said Perry. “That’s what I lacked growing up. Me becoming involved in music, I left my family behind. After I began playing, my whole world changed. I realized I wanted parents to take more responsibility.”
She used her life experiences and ideas to develop a music curriculum and formed the Metropolitan Youth Orchestra in 1995. Its first home was at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, and later found a new residence.
“In 2008, the ISO recognized how meaningfully MYO epitomized the power of music making and invited MYO to become a permanent program of the ISO, thereby ensuring that Betty’s philosophy continued,” said Lamkin.
Perry wanted the program to be more than a place where kids learned music, but a place where families could use music to uplift their lives.
“We’re the arts, but we have some social services people need. We work with organizations that deal with domestic violence, family counselors and we work with Second Helpings to provide dinner twice a week for families before rehearsal,” said Perry.
MYO is unmistakably about the children. It’s also built on Perry’s life story — a talented youth who excelled in music. She too challenges her current students to push their musical gift to the limits.
The MYO is celebrating 20 years of existence, but Perry’s not done with the program just yet. She said her next steps are identifying youth leaders and encouraging them to use their talents to uplift the community through the lens of the arts.
“The uptown knowledge is the knowledge of the thinkers. If you study them, you think differently. When I look at my kids, the fact that they play instruments is a good start, but it’s a way to release what’s already embedded in their souls,” said Perry.
For more information, call (317) 639-4300 or visit indianapolissymphony.org/education/myo.
