Music Haven Plays Triumphantly Into Summer

Lucy Gellman Photos.

Prince Davenport was already bouncing to the violins when the cello came in, with a hum that seemed deeper than strings alone could muster. Madness is what you demonstrate! And that's exactly how anger works and operates! he rapped. Across the room, Fatima Rojas and Milda Torres McClain swayed to the lyrics, still holding their instruments in one hand. Davenport handed the mic off to Ayana Salahuddin, raised his arms above his head, and ushered in a clap.

Outside the doors of the Q House, it felt like the world was ending. Inside a sprawling gymnasium that might have been a concert hall, there had never been a greater reason to be alive.

Music Haven brought that magic to the Dixwell Community Q House Wednesday night, as an end-of-year concert showed off eight months of curricular evolution, student growth, countless hours of practice and new collaborations for the Fair Haven-based nonprofit. As haze from Canada's wildfires turned the sun red outside, close to 100 students flexed their sonic skills, giving an audience of parents, friends, board members and fellow students a sense that the world would keep turning, even if the apocalypse had arrived.  

Boerner (in grey skirt) with Music Haven parent and Director of Development and Community Engagement Lygia Davenport. Lucy Gellman Photos.

It also marks a bittersweet goodbye: violist and resident musician Annalisa Boerner, who joined the organization eight years ago, is leaving this summer to pursue coding. During her time, she has nurtured dozens of young violists, become the program's manager of student belonging, and helped Music Haven navigate a global pandemic and return to in-person classes. 

"It's a big mix of emotions," Boerner said at the end of the concert, between hugs with several of her students. "I do have excitement for this new career. But I will miss this community of students and parents and colleagues at Music Haven. As a teacher, it's everything you hope for to build genuine connections with the kids in your life."   

Throughout the evening—and despite some tears—the prevailing feeling was explosive joy and excitement in what has been, and also for what is to come. Not the stealthy kind, that tiptoes in unexpectedly in the still of night and stays for just a little while. It was a kind of joy that felt thick and palpable and enduring, humming through every glance at a tiny cello, every pint-sized bow tie and suit, every swishing ruffle of taffeta set aglow by the right combination of notes. 

Lucy Gellman Photos.

In the Q House's gym, it crackled in the air as student musicians filled the bleachers, and family members searched for seats before the show began. 

Moments after 6 p.m., the audience could feel it as Philip Boulanger's beginner cello class ambled up to the front of the room, scanning the space for their peers as they settled into their seats to play.  Before a single note drifted across the room, Artistic Director Yaira Matyakubova called up her Music Bridge students, young immigrants and refugees who are learning music as part of their welcome to a new country. Then Matyakubova extended her arm once more, and a handful of parents, all carrying instruments, came to the front of the room. 

It's just one of the ways Music Haven has grown its mission in the last year. In the fall, Matyakubova built the adult class as a way to create connection among parents, particularly immigrants and refugees still finding their way in a completely new and unfamiliar city. Then other parents, as well as Executive Director Milda Torres McClain, signed on too. Between members of the class, there are almost half a dozen languages; music is the most universal one. 

Lucy Gellman Photos.

"We tried to say yes to everything this year," Boulanger said in an interview after the concert. Within the organization, it meant building back large student ensembles that hadn't existed since before the Covid-19 pandemic, and fielding student requests that ranged from The Weeknd and The Black Eyed Peas to Vivaldi. Externally, it included trying out new collaborations. Last month, students partnered with the Music In Schools initiative for the first time in its nearly two decades. 

"It was wonderful," Boulanger said, adding that he was amazed that it hadn't happened earlier. 

That spirit of new-old experimentation extended to the concert. As musicians played a short French Folk Song as a group, the sound filled the room, cello steady as Boulanger half-coached, half-conducted. That carried through to early violin and viola players, most of whom had never picked up an instrument before September 2022. By the time beginner and prelude orchestras had taken the gym-turned-stage, students were ready for a slowed, stretched out and resonant version of "Boil 'em Cabbage Down" that put a new spin on the bluegrass counterpart most listeners may be familiar with. 

Moments later, Matyakubova carried it into "Andijon Polka," a traditional Uzbek folk dance and song that both her studio and parent class learned before their spring recital. In the Andijan region from which it originally comes, "it's one of the most famous songs that everybody knows," she said. For many of the Afghan moms in her class, it was also a cacophonous, bright reminder of a home that is no longer safe to visit.

"Before we [Afghanistan and Uzbekistan] were separated, we were one region," she said. "This brings us together.”

As young musicians and their parents played side-by-side, some dancing with their bows suspended in the air, the work sprang to life. In a bright fabric tunic and embroidered Uzbek skullcap called a doppa, Matyakubova took a seat and wrapped her legs around a djembe, hammering out a rhythm that could carry the class. Violins sang over it in quick, shrill strides, students and parents playing alongside each other. 

On cue, half of the violins fell quiet, and two students in the front row began dancing. In unison, they stomped with an “Ayyy!” and others joined in. At the drums, Matyakubova beamed and lifted her hands for a single, sharp clap. Her arms pumped the air jubilantly, and then returned to the drum skin. 

Lucy Gellman Photos.

"This was a vision of a few people that became this incredible celebration," she had said earlier in the evening, and the words seemed to echo over the whole night. 

They were there when sisters Ayana and Adina Salahuddin channeled Vivaldi, delicate and precise on their approach to his Concerto for Two Violins in A Minor.  They were there when The Dragonhunter Orchestra returned in all its glory with drummer Nick d’Errico, jumping into rhythm and rock beats written specifically for early orchestra students. They were there as teachers presented Suzuki medals to students who had completed their book and moved up a level, some for the first time at Music Haven. 

Nowhere were they clearer, however, than in the final portion of the show, as close to 100 students and parent musicians spread across one side of the gym, their bodies four or five deep and spanning the length of the entire wall. As Boulanger conducted, students started quietly, with a kind of rising, harmonious sound that might have been reserved for a high school graduation. 

But it was a fake out: strings melted into the bouncing intro to “Where Is The Love,” and members of the audience began to bob and clap along. Taking the mic, Davenport launched right into the lyrics, Ayana Salahuddin and Mathais Li-Nuñez dancing in place beside him. When he passed on the mic, Salahuddin jumped right in, one hand extended as her knees bent to the rhyme. Davenport wove in front of the audience, hands over his head as he got attendees clapping. 

Lucy Gellman Photos.

So too in Luis Gustavo Prado's "Zapateo," part of his 2020 “Suite de Canto y Danza en Forma de Variaciones” written specifically for students at Music Haven during the pandemic. While members of the Haven String Quartet have played sections of the piece at their formal concerts and laid back outdoor performances, Wednesday marked the first time that all students had the chance to play a movement of the piece together. 

The section honors Zapateado, a sweeping folkloric dance punctuated by the natural percussion of sharp footfalls, and not untouched by colonial European influences. Speaking briefly before students played, Boulanger said that he was thrilled to honor the original intention of the piece, which includes parts tailor-made for students of varying levels. Indeed, Gustavo Prado originally wrote it with young and budding musicians in mind.  

Students and staff also took the opportunity to thank Boerner, whose last official day at Music Haven is this Friday. Speaking midway through the concert, violist Nathalie Tejada cried her way through a series of remarks, thanking Boerner for her commitment to her students and to the wider Music Haven community. The organization is in the final hiring stages for a new violist, but cannot yet share the person’s name, Boulanger later said.

Nathalie Tejada: “We will always have a viola part here waiting for you.” Lucy Gellman Photos.

A sophomore at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School, Tejada has been a student at Music Haven for five years, meaning that Boerner has always been her teacher. She credited Boerner with seeing her through the pandemic (“we were stuck online for three years!”) and giving her practice and performance skills that help her manage her anxiety when she plays.   

“Your joy and positivity always lights up a room … I wish I could play half as passionately as you do,” she said as staff powered up a slideshow of Boerner’s eight years at the organization. “We will always have a viola part here waiting for you.” 

Elsewhere in the crowd, musicians of all ages fêted a triumphant concert with soft double chocolate discs, sugar-dusted snickerdoodles and Geigenbaumeister Ute Brinkmann’s signature shortbread cookies stamped with Music Haven’s logo. As she stood with her daughters Ambar and Jade Santiago-Rojas, violinist Fatima Rojas said that she was still floating after playing with the parent class. 

Fatima Rojas (at center) with her daughters Jade and Ambar Santiago-Rojas. Lucy Gellman Photos.

“I’m gonna turn 53 next month, and I never thought that I was going to be able to play the violin,” she said. As a kid growing up in Mexico, Rojas always wanted to play an instrument, but “my family didn’t have the resources.” She’s thrilled that she can now learn alongside her kids. 

Ambar, a cellist who is finishing her sophomore year at Engineering and Science University Magnet School (ESUMS), said that music helps her connect with her peers and relax, especially during final exams this time of the year. For her sister Jade, who also dances, it’s also a way to relieve stress and anxiety.   

“I guess it’s kind of a distraction,” Jade Santiago-Rojas said. “If I have a bad day at school, it’s a way I can release that stress.” 

Learn more about Music Haven at their website.