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Piano Lab Puts On a Show - And Delivers Results

Winbourne's piano lab students perform their first recital.
Ann Marie Awad
/
WRKF News
Winbourne's piano lab students perform their first recital.
Winbourne's piano lab students perform their first recital.
Credit Ann Marie Awad / WRKF News
/
WRKF News
Winbourne's piano lab students perform their first recital.

Back in September, we told you about the Piano Lab at Winbourne Elementary. It was an experiment. O’Neill’s Music House arranged to get a bunch of cutting edge electronic keyboards to the high poverty school in North Baton Rouge. Tuesday, the pianos were rolled out of the lab and into the auditorium for the students’ first recital.

Before September, none of the kids on stage at Winbourne had ever touched a piano. Just before the show, lead instructor Steven Watkins took all 15 kids aside and asked them if they were nervous.

“And they said, in unison: 'No,'" Watkins says,  "and I responded: Well I am!” 

The kids played 9 songs, mostly Christmas songs, with some classics like Old MacDonald thrown in.

Part of the goal of the program was to see if music instruction would help the students do better in core subjects. Principal Brenda Wilkinson says it has.

“There were many of those kids who were not on the honor roll, had never been on the honor roll, and now they are honor roll students," Wilkinson says.

Out of the 15 students in the class, six are now on honor roll, and two are on principal’s list, which means they got straight A’s. Another student with a history of behavioral trouble has not had one incident so far this year.

For many parents and classmates, Tuesday’s recital was their first glimpse of what the small group had been working on for the last few months.

Sega Landry, whose son Noah performed, was impressed.

“I thought he was going to be struggling but he is loving it, so I’m glad that he participated in this program," Landry said.

So what’s next for the piano lab? Well, first, there’s winter break. But then the kids will be back behind the keys getting ready for their spring recital.

Copyright 2014 WRKF

Ann Marie came a long way to WRKF. Originally from Buffalo, NY, where she was a freelance print reporter, she moved to New York City to get a masters in journalism from the City University of New York Graduate School of Journalism. During her time at CUNY, she interned with Brooklyn's Heritage Radio Network and Philadelphia's WHYY FM. When she's not wielding a microphone, Ann Marie loves comic books, politics and a great cup of coffee.