LESSONS, ANYONE?

posted by James Reel

    My latest contribution to the Tucson Weekly begins like this:

    The Uzbekistan music-education system has established an outpost in Oro Valley.
    This weekend, the Oro Valley Music and Dance Academy will celebrate its grand opening with an instrument petting zoo, dance and music demonstrations, balloon art and the customary ribbon-cutting and speechifying.
    It's a branch of the Music and Dance Academy, which was established in Tucson 12 years ago by Nina Tishkevich. She moved with her family to Tucson in the early 1990s, leaving behind the anti-Semitism and political instability of their native Tashkent, Uzbekistan. There, Tishkevich had directed the music department at the Tashkent Music Pedagogy Center, overseeing 3,000 teachers and 14,500 students in 32 music schools.
    Between its two locations, the Music and Dance Academy employs 35 faculty members; at the end of the last academic year, about 475 students were on its rolls. It's not as grand as the music-education empire Tishkevich oversaw in Tashkent, but still impressive considering that she got her local start, after a stint teaching at a Montessori school, by renting a single studio at the Tucson Jewish Community Center.
    Impressive, and necessary. Schools like this, and private teachers, are increasingly important in the Tucson area. From the 1950s into the early 1970s, Tucson schools enjoyed a golden age of music education, but since then, tighter budgets and changing priorities have taken a toll on school-arts programs. More than ever, students need private arts academies and individual teachers to supplement or personalize what they get in school, or even to replace school programs that have vanished over the years.