They've Got Pluck: CHA Youth Orchestra a Survival Kit for Kids in Public Housing

EDITORIAL: Sweet Notes in the Projects

The notion of letting children in Chicago Housing Authority developments take violins, cellos and string basses home to practice music composed a few centuries before the birth of Michael Jackson or Kool Moe Dee may seem bizarre to some, particularly those who have the benighted belief that nothing good can come out of “the projects.”

It is a novel idea but, as Chicago has seen with CHA night basketball, the novel often sounds like nonsense but works quite nicely.

The good that can be found in the quarter-million children who call CHA developments home is well represented in the 26 chosen so far for the Music Cultivation Program for CHA Youth. They range from kinder-garteners to 9th graders and were selected in July from four developments by teachers from the not-for-profit Merit Music Program.

Officials of CHA and the 11-year-old Merit Music Program hope the Music Cultivation Program eventually will become a full symphony orchestra with bass, winds, percussion and strings. But for now, the children's parents must endure, like other good parents everywhere, the bittersweet joy and agony of hearing young hands become familiar with bows and strings.

It may comfort them to know that the CHA's classical music pioneers are engaging in an experience that will help give structure and meaning to their lives no less than it does for children who live anywhere else. Whether or not they achieve their dreams of performing in Orchestra Hall someday—and who is to say some won't?—the lessons of form, grace, teamwork and discipline will serve them well, no matter what fields they pursue later in their lives.

With determination on their part and support from others, the young musicians will find their horizons broadened and their self-esteem improved.

And everyone else should have their hopes and dreams for the next generation boosted a little with the knowledge that, behind the torn window screens and graffiti-covered walls of public housing, some budding young talents are making beautiful music together.