Among all of the different concerts that marked the end of the school year at the elementary schools, one was very different from the others.

At T.M. Roberts Elementary School the Violin Club played its very first concert, led by Kim Lutz at the year end music concert that also featured the Grade 6 Concert Band.

The Violin Club began after Lutz moved back to Cranbrook after 18 years of teaching in Japan.

“When I moved back to Cranbrook last year, just seeing the impact it had on the children in Japan in that school — within a couple of years they were becoming so accomplished on the violin — that I really wanted to bring that idea back to Cranbrook and back to students here,” Lutz said. “Some of the things I experienced and learned over there, for example the violin program, it just seemed to me the kids here could benefit from some of those ideas. Slowly, over time I’ve been trying to bring some of those ideas into the music classes here.”

The Violin Club started in February 2010 and in its first year had about 50 kids enrolled. Lutz said his goal is to have upwards of 100 kids, or one third of T.M.’s student body, participating. Having that many participants is a win/win/win situation, he said.

“First of all, when we can reach a third of the students, as they get older and they are going into band or going through the music program in Cranbrook, they are just that much more accomplished, their readings skills for music, their ears are just that much better. That will have an impact on the entire music education within this school and in the future within the other schools,” Lutz said. “Another win is, it is an extra curricular activity and there is no charge for it. So a number of families in the area that maybe have wanted to give their children music lessons but financially might not be able to, this gives them an excellent opportunity to offer their children some music lessons. For the students that is such a wonderful opportunity.”

Lutz does ask families to make a donation of $2 per week so if a child attends all the lessons it works out to 50 cents per lesson.

“What that money does is it goes into building the music program at the school here. We’ve raised over $1,500 just within the last four or five months. We’ve bought new instruments, replaced old, broken instruments, bought a new music carpet and things like that,” he said. “The music program in the school has benefited overall. There’s a win for the school that way, a win for the music program in Cranbrook and a win for the students and their families. It’s worked out really well all around.”

Jason Ludwar, principal of T.M. Roberts, said the program has been very positive for the school.

“I think it’s absolutely wonderful and just a great opportunity for our students,” he said. “The other neat thing about it is because it’s held in the evening the students come back, each with a parent, so it really builds a sense of community at the school and it’s all due to him (Lutz) and his work. We’ve certainly benefited from that this year.”

They met four times every week, on Tuesday and Thursday evenings, Monday at lunchtime and on Wednesdays in the morning.

“By meeting four times a week, even if the kids don’t practice much on their own, they’re going to make progress and so that’s one of the key elements,” Lutz said. “At the evening lessons the parents come, they sit in on the lessons, I explain to them what we’re doing and they are engaged in the students’ learning process. The parents were very involved in the education process in Japan and the Suzuki Method was kind of born in Japan. Shinichi Suzuki was originally from Nagoya, which is where I was working. His whole idea of teaching children music was to involve the parents.

“His main thing was to involve the parents, to teach the parents the proper way to hold the violin, the proper way to hold the bow, the proper way to play the songs and then when the children were at home playing on their violins, the parents can correct mistakes and so that’s kind of what we’ve tried to do here with this program.”

The Violin Club has students from Kindergarten to Grade 6 in it. At the year-end concert the club played four songs and the younger students were able to play three of them.

“The plan in the future is that the groups will be based on levels so it won’t be so much determined by age, you know some of the kindergarten children who are putting in a lot of effort and learning the songs really well, they will move up to the quicker paced group, whereas others who are struggling will move down to the lower one,” Lutz said. “It’s exciting for the students. They get together as a group and when they are all playing together and their bows are all moving in unison, it’s exciting and they feed off of each other’s energy. I think I get more energy from the program than I give out, students just bring so much passion with them.”

Lutz said depending on where he is teaching in the fall, the program may be offered at a different school, but all the students involved from T.M. Roberts would be invited to continue the lessons.