Brass and woodwinds, check; percussion, check; but what’s an orchestra without strings? El Segundo schools have always had music programs, rudimentary or otherwise, but they hadn’t reached or reached for their full potential. While band programs and choir programs were in place, it wasn’t until 2012 when Kerri Epps was hired by former school superintendent Geoff Yantz that a certain symphonic blossoming began to unfold and take wing.
“I’m a strings specialist, as well as being a credentialed K-12 music teacher,” Epps says, sitting in her office at El Segundo Middle School. She was brought in by Dr. Yantz to teach general music at Richmond Street Elementary School, but also to design and implement a strings program.
Epps is a multi-instrumentalist whose primary instrument is the violin. She’s been playing for 20 years “and had the opportunity in high school to perform at the Hollywood Bowl and Walt Disney Concert Hall.”
Coming to El Segundo as a music teacher, her mandate was clear and Epps was ready for it.
“The idea was to start from the bottom up,” she says, “and so I first built an after-school strings program at the elementary school level.” Originally geared for 4th and 5th grade students, it has since expanded to include students in 2nd and 3rd grade, all of whom can learn the violin, viola, or cello.
“In 2012, Kerri founded the Seaside Strings program,” says Laura Bedol, the group’s program director. “Due to her hard work and vision it has grown tremendously. Not only does she care about each individual student in the program, she also makes an effort to observe the teaching staff and optimize our teaching method.”
A year later, Epps began teaching beginning and intermediate string orchestra classes at El Segundo Middle School, and eventually a chamber orchestra class as well (she also teaches a choir class). About two years after this, string classes were introduced to El Segundo High School, “which at first were after-school and have now been moved into the school day.
“At the high school I teach a symphony orchestra (class), which is an advanced ensemble that includes string students, and then we partner with the band program and they give us woodwinds, brass, and percussion so we can be a full symphonic orchestra.”
As the elementary school-aged musicians move up the ladder the high school orchestra only stands to become more finely tuned and sophisticated.
Ed! Foundation CEO Carol Pirsztuk recalls how it all began:
“El Segundo Education Foundation (Ed!) board member Duane Conover had a dream of having an orchestra at El Segundo High School. When the El Segundo Unified School District hired Kerri that dream became achievable.
“I still remember the day when Kerri and I met and planned out how we would develop a 3rd to 12th grade strings program over five years. By coupling funds from Duane and Ed!, and with Kerri’s passion and driving force, we were able to accomplish our goal of having an ESHS orchestra in just four years.”
Build it, and they will play
Kerri Epps is a California native who grew up in Santa Monica and now resides in Hermosa Beach. After graduating from Santa Monica High School she attended UCLA, where she earned a B.A. in Music Education, with an emphasis on the violin. Currently she’s pursuing her Masters in Music Teaching and Learning at the USC Thornton School of Music. Additionally, she’s the membership chair of the California Orchestra Directors Organization, or CODA.
Epps is fully away that whenever school districts feel a financial pinch it’s the arts programs that are the first ones cut. And so, with regard to El Segundo’s music program, “It’s very exciting that this district wanted to go the other direction and build it.”
While at first the string classes were small, because students were unfamiliar with them, didn’t know they were being offered, or had opted for more popular electives, they’ve since grown in size. “For example,” Epps says, “at the high school our first class had nine string students… Now we have 35 students and combined with the band we have 55. That’s in four years, and every year it keeps growing.”
Soon she’ll be able to schedule Mahler, known for his colossal ensembles.
“That’s the dream,” Epps exclaims with a laugh. “We all sat down together and said, Okay, we want that full symphony orchestra. That was the experience I had, going to Santa Monica. And that’s what I wanted too so I said, Great, let’s do it. It’s just going to take some time.”
Of course Epps couldn’t have achieved it all on her own. She’s unstinting in her praise for colleagues and others such as Bedol and Pirsztuk, as well as ESUSD superintendent Melissa Moore and El Segundo Elementary Band program director Edie Rice.
The appreciation is mutual. In Moore’s words, “Kerri is a role model and ‘lead learner’ for her students as evident through her own conference presentations and clinical experiences.”
“I would just like to reiterate that this program is a story of collaboration,” Epps says. A case in point: Rice was instrumental (an appropriate word!) in securing a vast quantity of violins for the schools at a reasonable price. While many students own their instrument, other students rent theirs from the school.
The middle school now has a bungalow for music classes, and a bond measure recently passed will enable a music room to be built at the high school.
“The state only gives us so much money,” Epps says, “and then Ed! comes in and looks at it, and what they do is fund the gap… If it wasn’t for Ed! none of this would have existed.”
Their skills on display
To show the rest of us what they’ve learned, the various string ensembles, choirs, singers and bands perform several concerts every year. Many of these take place in the El Segundo High School Performing Arts Center. “At the high school,” Epps says, “we try to do a fall assembly tour where we visit all the schools and perform for the students.” They did a Halloween tour this past year, plus a winter concert, and coming this spring is a festival where they will go and compete (hoping, no doubt, to return laden with prizes).
When the high school groups perform, what kind of music can we expect to hear?
“Because we’re a symphony orchestra,” Epps replies, “I try to do bigger symphonic works.” In December this included Grieg’s “March of the Dwarves” and Smetana’s “The Moldau.” In general, she selects pieces “that are programmatic and theatrical, and things too that our community will recognize.” The upcoming spring concert may feature music written for or used in film, because “We’ve won a lottery to see an L.A. Phil concert and it’s going to be all about film music.”
If the L.A. Phil can play it, so can the ESHS Symphony Strings!
Meanwhile, the El Segundo Middle School Chamber Orchestra is also tackling the classics: Schubert and Dvorak this past September. There was even a soloist and an original composition by 7th grader Daniel Tritasavit.
Outside of El Segundo, people are starting to take notice of the city’s music programs. Epps relates how one family, moving to Southern California, researched the districts up and down the coast and then chose El Segundo precisely for this reason.
Epps has done wonders for El Segundo’s school music programs, but she’s hardly finished. And what would she still like to see? For the orchestral program, she says, “I would like to further develop class offerings at ESHS, including a Beginning Strings class to serve as an ‘on-ramp’ for students. I would also like to start taking the ESHS Symphony Orchestra on tours. My vision is that we would travel every other year to give the students an opportunity to share their talents, expand their world-view, and have a deeply enriching experience.
“For both the middle school and high school programs, my hope is that more students take part in opportunities to perform in various state honor orchestras, such as the CODA Honor Orchestras and SCSBOA (Southern California School Band and Orchestra Association) Honor Orchestras.” Knowing her track record, it’s bound to happen.
