The Power of Music: An Interview With Sandra Baran, Director of Grace Notes Music Foundation

FineMark Radio: Episode 3 Transcription

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David Scaff:

Good morning. This is David Scaff with Finemark Bank in Palm Beach, Florida. Today we have with us Sandra Baran, who’s the Founder and Director of Grace Notes Music Foundation. Welcome, Sandra.

Sandra Baran:

Thank you, David. I’m really happy to be here and to have the opportunity to speak with you today about our Grace Notes Music Foundation and the work that we do.

David Scaff:

Well, we’re really excited too. In fact, we’ve been sitting here talking for a minute, and I said, I wish I had the recorder going already because you have a great story in music. So why don’t we kind of start there? Tell me about your history in music.

Sandra Baran:

Yes. Well, I started very young in New Jersey, and I come from a family of musicians. My grandfather was from Sicily and studied at a conservatory there. My dad started a music school in New Jersey, and so I was his student from the time I was about five or six years old. A very popular instrument during that time was the accordion. So, I studied classical accordion, actually played Mendelson and Bach on the accordion. And then, as I grew, I still was involved in music and became more of an ops performer later on in my early twenties, got married and then came down to Florida with my husband and kids, got a Master’s in Music and started music education. I played for kids in some of the schools, and then started teaching in schools and started a music school in 2003, the Jupiter Academy of Music.

David Scaff:

Wow. So, this really is a lifelong passion of yours.

Sandra Baran:

Yes, I feel it’s in my blood.

David Scaff:

I think you said your parents and maybe grandfather even were musicians. Tell us about your life with music as opposed to what you might perceive it to be without. How has it changed your life?

Sandra Baran:

I think having music intricately involved in my life has made me a very positive person. All of our lives have ups and downs. Some things are tragic, some things are joyful, but I think being able to play music and teach music keeps my spirit and my psyche very positive.

David Scaff:

So, music education, you’ve been involved in it, teaching lessons, I think you said you founded a school here and that was?

Sandra Baran:

Jupiter Academy of Music in Jupiter, in 2003. I’ve done group music education in elementary school, private music, education, teaching piano, some voice, and also do youth choirs. I just feel it’s very important for students, for young children to have music in their lives, enriching it not only because it makes you more socially engaged and gives you more self-esteem, but also you can be a team player when you’re studying music. There is just a lot of research out there that shows that music should be a core aspect of everybody’s education from the time they’re really young. We’re far from that right now, our foundation is a small foundation, Grace Notes Music Foundation. That’s part of our mission, that we believe that every student should have the opportunity to have music education as a core aspect of their education and history.

David Scaff:

So, it sounds like you’ve really focused on youth through much of your career, especially in teaching and you shared with me a quote before we got started, which I think kind of sets the stage really for what you do and why you do it. Can I invite you to give us that quote?

Sandra Baran:

Yes. I found this quote that really has driven us and has driven me, and it’s from Plato. The Greeks really believed, as we do, that music should be a core aspect of the education. Plato said, “I would teach children music, physics, and philosophy, but most importantly music, for the patterns in music and all the arts are the keys to learning.”

David Scaff:

Wow. That’s pretty poignant. Thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate it. So you started Jupiter Academy of Music, and then you morphed into Grace Notes Foundation. Tell us the story about how that got started.

Sandra Baran:

Yes, it’s a very compelling story. I had the Jupiter Academy of Music, and in 2009, I had this wonderful little student, McKayla Joy Sitton. She was bright, she was joyful. Unfortunately, she was tragically killed in 2009, right around this time. And her parents had the forethought to invite people to donate to her music school or her ballet school. She was a great little piano student. When that happened, I was not a nonprofit, but I felt that I should do something important, as much as I could, with the funds that were given to us from that. And so, we started the Grace Notes Music Foundation. A good part of our foundation is the individual music scholarships, which children get each year. We have 23 individual music scholarships. They get lessons for the whole year. Those are called the McKayla Joy Sitton scholarships.

I find it so hopeful and so life-giving that from a tragedy like that, the seeds of the Grace Notes Music Foundation happened. And what we do as a foundation grew from that. It just gives me a lot of hope in a world where you need hope, where you need more light. We’re doing that kind of work. Now, that was our genesis. We have scholarships this year. We have 23 individual music scholarships: guitar, a lot of strings, some piano, voice all over the county with different teachers. We vet the teachers and we have them fill out a form. We know them, we know of their schooling and all that. Then on the other side of our foundation we have the other 50%, which is community outreach. We do things like we have an artist in residence that we fund at the UB Kinsey Elementary School of the Arts. It’s an elementary school in West Palm. They don’t have a lot of funding, but we have funded a master string teacher so that their fifth-grade orchestra can become the best they can be. We’re doing that. We’ve also started a mindful music program. This is new for us. And what it does is it’s helping to give teens the tools to alleviate or to work with their stress, their anxiety. It’s something new for us. It just started this year. We work with a very good music therapist.

David Scaff:

And where do you employ that? Is it in the schools or where?

Sandra Baran:

Well, this is so new, David. We had a pilot program in March for six weeks and it was virtual, and it worked really well. The kids came back every week. They had to commit; they were high school kids. It’s a six-week syllabus of just first meditating. It’s mindful music and then finding music that can be triggers for you. And you put them on your iPad or your iPhone when you’re feeling stressed or anxious. And there’s lots of other tools. So that was a pilot program. We’re now talking with several different agencies: A legal aid society, a clinic up in Jupiter and a family center in West Palm to have their teen clients do a program, probably in person, but it also works virtually. So, it’s usually eight to 10 students and they work together, and the music therapists lead them through the six weeks, and by the end, the kids said they felt they were able to better deal with stress and anxiety. Of course, it’s not a magic pill. After six weeks, we’ll probably have check in times, or we even have plans maybe if it really takes off to do a mindful music app. One of our board members is excited about that so that the kids could access this when they need to.

David Scaff:

Take me back to the genesis, the scholarships and 23 scholarship students right now. How do you determine a scholarship recipient?

Sandra Baran:

We have an application. We haven’t publicized it widely in the last 10 years because we had been a small foundation, but we’re growing and it’s very exciting. The last few years we’ve really started to grow. So, we have talked to Title One elementary schools up in Jupiter. We’ve gotten several applicants from there because the music teacher identified them as somebody who might really do well with music lessons. We have an application process, and we use the free breakfast figures from the state because, in order to qualify for free breakfast, you have to be below a certain income level.  We use that as a basis for awarding the scholarships. We do add a little bit onto that, because that’s a very, very low number income-wise. And then we have a process where we have a committee and they interview the applicant and the parent and they explain that it’s in the memory of McKayla, who was a very diligent little girl and studious. We get the applications in the spring, and the committee then decides within our budget, how many we can award for the year.

David Scaff:

Wow. So, scholarships and music lessons and mindfulness. What other sort of things are you doing?

Sandra Baran:

We’ve also done music camps over the last 10 years. We celebrated our 10^th anniversary, and we had a big celebration. You can find it on our YouTube channel, Bravo Grace Notes. It’s about 20 minutes and it gives the whole history of our foundation and the different things that we’ve done over the years. We do music camps for kids in West Palm and Jupiter. We’ve also done instrument grants for students. A few students have gone to Dreyfoos School of Arts, and they weren’t able to purchase an instrument that kids in Dreyfoos should have. You know, they’re in high level bands. So, a few times, the student has given a concert, and whatever they raise for the concert, we match and make sure they get the professional instrument they need. Those are some of the things that we do. We’ve only been around for 10 years, but I know you wanted to hear a few stories about our scholarships.

David Scaff:

I’d love to hear about something that’s really impacted someone. Yes.

Sandra Baran:

We’ve had five or six folks who have gone through high school. All those students have gotten into college and they’re in college, which if you look at the county average, that’s very high. You could say that a hundred percent of our scholarship students who have gone through 12^th grade then go on to college. That’s pretty exciting. Last year, we had a student who had been with us since she was a little girl. We actually gave her merit scholarships because you can apply for a scholarship for six years, at least. And if you keep up your studies, if your teacher says you’re progressing, then you can apply and get the scholarship again. She was one of our scholars. She was so studious, so good, such a wonderful spokesperson for our foundation and supporter that we gave her scholarships all the way through 12^th grade. She’s now at Emory College, she got a scholarship for Emory, but she’s not going to be a music major. I think she wants to go into pre-law, which is exciting. She’s playing violin at a local church. She’s a fantastic violinist.

We have two students. One is now in the Bach School of the Arts and the other, her brother, in the UB Kinsey School of the Arts. The mom came to us several years ago through a church connection. She was living in the Lord’s Place because she was homeless. She was just such an advocate for her kids. She knew she wanted her kids to have music lessons, but she didn’t even have a place to live. We did what was called an emergency scholarship because it wasn’t in the spring for the usual one and got them in. They’re still on scholarship. That must be about three or four years ago. And Lala, as we call the daughter, she got into Bach School of the Arts for strings. She’s a cellist, and her brother who’s in fifth grade looks like he will probably do the same with his violin, which is wonderful for that family.

David Scaff:

Absolutely. That is really something. Their parents must be impacted by all this work as well.

Sandra Baran:

Oh yes. I think they feel very grateful. The mom of Lala and Theo, the story I just told you about, she’s extremely grateful and wants to help in any way that she can. Alondra’s mom has been so involved in our foundation, supporting it, and they realize what it does for their kids to be able to have music.

David Scaff:

Sandra, I’m blown away by the amount of things that you’re doing. And just 10 years, I mean, you started with a scholarship program that’s grown to 23, all of these different things. How many people must you have helping you with all of this?

Sandra Baran:

We can’t do it without all of the people who volunteer. We’re still a small foundation, but we have a lot of vision, and we know we want to be in the community. We have just one administrative person. And it’s a very modest position that she has. She’s actually a violinist and works remotely now. She does all of our banking and our sending out because every week, every month you have to send out checks to the teachers. And there’s a lot of other administrative things she does. And I can’t even tell you, it’s a very low figure of what she gets and everyone else is volunteer. We’re not at a point yet where we have an actual executive director that gets paid, but we do all work because all of us are passionate. And we really believe in what music does.

Most of the people who help me have either been former students or the parents of students and they believe in music. Before we started the recording, we were talking about the fact that it takes a special person with vision to want to donate to a foundation like ours, to an arts foundation, to a music foundation, because there’s so many immediate needs in our community. People who need food, people who need medical help, you know those are immediate things that need to be done. There are foundations to address those needs, but a music or an arts foundation really depends on donors whose vision believes that our culture and our society will be better by investing in music education for students, that in the long run, this will make a better society than the one we have now. We know we do need to work on our society to make it better.

David Scaff:

Well, beautifully said. I think you’re exactly right about that. Let’s talk about those people who are donors and fundraising. You’ve got something coming up now that we’re very excited about playing a part with you. Tell us a little bit about that.

Sandra Baran:

I will, and we are so grateful to FineMark for just jumping in and helping us with this new collaboration that we have with the Pops Orchestra of the Palm Beaches. We’re going to have an event on December 10, which is something we’ve never done before. It’s called a side-by-side concert, and some of our scholarship students, the older ones, and several other musicians, student musicians in the community, will have the opportunity to work with the professional Pops Orchestra musicians. There are two sessions where they’re being mentored before the concert, by the musicians and by the concert master. They have that opportunity. And then, on December 10, they will be on the stage at Abacoa Amphitheater, side by side with the professionals, doing a fantastic holiday concert with lots of excitement, a choir, also some soloists. We’re just excited because this gives us wonderful exposure for the work that we do as Grace Notes and in the community. And again, we’re so grateful to FineMark for helping us underwrite this big event.

David Scaff:

Well, again, we’re very excited about participating with you, and I’m very excited to hear some great holiday music to kick off the holiday.

Sandra Baran:

It’s going to be a great way to kick off the holidays. At Abacoa that night, there’s a food truck event. The food trucks will be there from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., and we just invite everybody to come out and support it.

David Scaff:

Great. And if you said the date, I missed it. Tell me the date again.

Sandra Baran:

Yes, it’s Friday, December 10. The concert itself will start at 7:30 p.m., but we encourage everyone to come at least by 6:30 p.m. to enjoy the food trucks that night. We’ll just have a wonderful time together under the stars. Hopefully, there will be stars.

David Scaff:

I hope so too. Well, Sandra, thank you so much. This has been very informative for me, and again, we’re really excited about the work you do. We look forward to your success and are really looking forward to the concert coming up very soon.

Sandra Baran:

Thanks a lot, David. And again, thank you so much for the opportunity to share everything that we’re doing at Grace Notes.