To all students, parents and community members,

Welcome back -- to in person learning! We are so thrilled to see you all. Some have grown taller, and even though we are wearing masks, we are doing our best to say hello as we pass each other in the hallways.

Safety always comes first, and we have done our best to improve our facilities, take measures with air purifiers, open windows, and disinfecting--as well as trying to reduce numbers in classes and allow for hybrid or remote lessons. It has been a summer long project, but even though we have increased our bandwidth with Comcast, installed several repeaters throughout both buildings, we are still having internet issues. Where we thought we could easily accommodate ten simultaneous hybrid classrooms, this is not exactly working. I am still working on all of this, and hopefully we will be able to have fiber optics in the next few weeks. For the moment, we ask Music parents to please contact their teachers in advance to let them know specifically if you will be in need of a remote connection. Teachers will not be connecting automatically to the group and musicianship rooms each day as previously announced.

We are looking forward to getting close to normal as possible. We would like to introduce many new Preschool staff this year: Katrina Hester is our new Preschool Director, and Samantha Nemeth is our new Whole Notes lead teacher. You may also recognize Dana Mathews who returns to the Quarter Note classroom after a few years of absence. Now her daughter is a little older, and we are so happy to have Dana back. Shawn Ding is our new afternoon assistant, and Walter Perry takes over as our after school director.

We also welcome Kasey Calebaugh and Melody Giron to our violin and cello faculty, respectively. Andrew Sheranian and Michael Weinfield-Zell are new to our musicianship faculty. If you have not met (in person) Christina Tavella, our registrar or Shawn Doung, our accounting manager, please stop into the office to say hello. With all of these new faces, we have put photos now on our website! Please check out the wealth of information we have made available to you there.

We have sad news to announce that Carol Sykes, after whom we named our Carol Sykes Preschool Violin program, passed away on September 23rd. She was a Suzuki Teacher trainer who studied with Dr. Suzuki in Japan for two years. She helped bring him to the USA with a tour of young Japanese children, and she helped Dr. Suzuki get his honorary doctorate from the New England Conservatory, her alma mater. Ms. Sykes taught many of our teachers did Suzuki training with her, AND she taught group class, parent class, orchestra and individual lessons for several years. She was also the teacher for my two children, Nick and Julia, who studied with her when we were living on the South Shore. I drove them to Falmouth for lessons for two years and we participated in her Violin Workshop held in Mashpee High School.

Here is the new month of October! We have many events planned: Parent coffees and discussion groups about the Suzuki philosophy and home practicing will be held soon. The violin and viola students are playing at the Harvest Fair on Sunday, Oct. 17th in Newton Center. We started a new community ed program where adults can take group lessons at Newton North High School or elementary children can have a beginner group lesson at Bowen Elementary School. We expect to expand on these programs in the Winter, so be sure to spread the word to your friends who want a very easy introduction to the Suzuki method by this group instruction (see http://www2.newtoncommunityed.org/). I will also be doing an introductory course called "Every Child Can" via Zoom on two Sundays, Oct. 24 and 31. This is an in depth introduction to the Suzuki philosophy and is open to parents who might like to really understand the basis by which the Suzuki method is conceived.

And finally, a sneak peak -- the Faculty Concert is returning on Sunday, Nov. 21st at 4 pm. Mark your calendars -- we hope to do this in person and live streamed.

Looking forward to a very interesting year and lots of creativity in all departments!

Musically yours,

Sachiko Isihara
Executive Director