Aaron Copland in my music classroom

I don’t know what made me think this morning of the little 8th grade girl who volunteer to demonstrate her interpretation of Copland’s “Simple Gifts”.

It was so long ago but I remember the assignment was to physically interpret the music. Several students volunteered and did a good job.

So it was at the grand full orchestral portion of the music we all looked forward to the individual interpreting and the little girl of which I speak was doing her interpretation. There are at least two versions of the theme before the third and fully majestic orchestrated one would begin. Everything up to that point was “typical”; the volunteer students walking up and down the pathway the class had created with little or no modifications coinciding with the music.

And then it came the little girls time. And when it came to that full orchestral section, she, unbeknownst to herself and only in my mind, did the final act of the movie, Sunset Boulevard; the part wherein Norma Desmond said, “I’m ready for my close-up now, Mr. DeMiles” and unlike the ending in the movies, the little girl did a curtsy.

The classroom was on fire! There was an uproar! I was screaming and yelling “Bravo! Bravo! Wonderful! Bravo!” and her fellow students were yelling and screaming! We were all quite alight and beside ourselves for several moments.

I do not remember if other students volunteered after the little girl’s performance, but I do think we clapped her into an encore. It was hard for us to believe we saw what we had just seen. This little girl was a “plain Jane”.

That was around the 3rd or 4th period into my teaching schedule. I had at least one more class in which to teach the Copeland lesson. Memory has now gone on a flat line. The little girl’s memory of what happened that day may well be different than my own but just like the man said in the movie Gigi, “Ah, I remember it well!”
As always,
BB