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The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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UW student revives black music with local high school ensemble

UW+student+revives+black+music+with+local+high+school+ensemble
Jenna Freeman

In a way to combine social work and musical passions, University of Wisconsin sophomore Wilder Deitz has spearheaded his own ensemble at East High School, taking with him musical and teaching strategies from his university experiences.

Richard Davis, “Jazz Master” and professor of bass at University of Wisconsin, directs the UW Black Music Ensemble, which practices and performs music by black composers and musicians, focusing on genres such as jazz, blues, R&B and other styles that are typically thought of as having been born in black culture in the United States.

Deitz, after having been part of Davis’ ensemble, has taken a page from Davis’ book in starting a replica Black Music Ensemble in his own community at East High School.

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Deitz graduated from East High School in spring 2012, has been playing music for six years after learning from his father, but did not join organized music groups at his school because he had never played by reading, but by ear.

Instead, Deitz formed a band with some of his high school friends and play various venues around Madison, including house concerts at their own home. Deitz also spends his time teaching piano lessons.

Yet, while Deitz continues to follow music as one of his passions, he is a student in social work at UW and has found a way to incorporate the two passions with his ensemble at East High.

Teaching and Learning

Deitz said his idea for the East High Black Music Ensemble came to him after he had been engaged in conversation last spring with Davis about how to create a more diverse and inclusive music community, a conversation which reflected much of the concerns throughout campus.

“I think it’s a great idea for students,” Davis said. “I got involved because I like him and I like what he does with it.”

Deitz said in having the experience of taking classes with Davis as well as being a part of his music ensemble, he has been able to adapt teaching styles and bring it to his group at East.

“He was very accepting of musicians such as myself, but he didn’t regard people who didn’t read music as lesser musicians, he was equally as hard,” Deitz said. “When someone doe that, it shows that they care about teaching you to play better.”

The high school ensemble, which meets twice a week, focuses on the same genres that are played with Davis’s UW Black Music Ensemble.

However, Deitz said his notions of genres are flexible, advice he received from Davis.

“He said we can call it whatever we want,” Deitz said. “It’s your music, my music, our music, it’s creative music.”

Davis advised Deitz to use music genre categories as a tool to engage students in the music they are playing. If calling something jazz gets the kids engaged, he said, then call it jazz.

“When I first got into jazz, I was really intimidated,” Deitz said. “You think of really intellectual people with berets on, you feel like you have to go to school to play jazz, but really jazz is just creative music.”

Community Engagement

Deitz said he had two ultimate goals in starting up the East High School Black Music Ensemble.

First, Deitz wanted to engage a diverse group of students. He said that something he has had to explain was that it didn’t mean a group composed entirely of black students, but of varied races and socioeconomic backgrounds to create an open environment that reflected the population of the high school.

“There was a smaller pool of black musicians than white musicians in the music groups that wasn’t representative of the population at East,” Deitz said.

Deitz said the group has been successful in developing the diverse, open space. Having gotten to know the different backgrounds of the 15 students who are part of the ensemble, Deitz feels he has accomplished his goal.

“I’m very satisfied with how diverse the group is and how everyone seems to be able to coexist and help each other out when they need support from each other,” Deitz said.

Deitz said the group is also diverse in the skill level and talents that each member brings. He said the group will get students who know how to read music and play classical to students who are just beginning to play music.

Mandell Mathis, a saxophone player in the group, said he is also involved in the high school’s jazz band, concert band and pep band.

“I’m all over,” Mathis said. “I brought what I had and we like how it sounds so we all stick together.”

Mathis said the group started out mostly focusing on jazz and some of the members are branching out, writing their own songs to bring to the table.

The second goal that Deitz had in developing his ensemble was to incorporate musical concepts into a social environment, to foster musical communication.

“In professor Davis’s class, the most important thing is to be listening, musically and to what people are trying to say,” Deitz said.

The concepts of knowing the right time to speak and the right time to listen are inherently musical, Deitz said. Those are things musicians do every time they play.

Deitz said the East High School Black Music Ensemble will be opening for Davis’s UW Black Music Ensemble Thursday, Feb. 19 at University Theatre.

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