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May is here, which means we are almost at the end of the Semester! Our team has been busy at work gearing up for our year-end concerts and planning for the summer. Last month was a blur as our team participated in the Practice-A-Thon with 141 musicians and artists worldwide. We also added two new teaching sites - 14th Avenue School and St. Andrews Church- to teach more children in their neighborhoods. As you read this newsletter, I hope you feel encouraged by all the good happening in Newark. I am grateful for all of you who continue to help us make dreams come true!
Jee-Hoon Krska, Executive Director
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Sowing Seeds for a New Tomorrow
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“Everything in this world is musical. Birds—birds talk to each other with music, don’t they?”
When it comes to speaking the language of music, Phil Bingham is trilingual: “I speak in three languages. What are the three? I speak jazz, I speak classical, and I speak gospel”. Gospel is where it all began for Phil. Born in the Bronx, New York, Phil became a church pianist at the young age of eight years old. Music had been a part of Phil’s life since day one, though, with both his parents being church musicians as well. He recalls spending much of his childhood tinkering around with a piano at home, fondly calling himself a “nerd” because while, “all the other kids were outside with skates, playing football, baseball, riding bikes…I was a nerdy kid, teaching myself how to read and play [piano]”.
He was introduced to a variety of other instruments in elementary and middle school, including the flute and clarinet, and later went on to master an even wider range of instruments in order to receive a diploma in music education. Despite this, Phil Bingham always found his way back to the piano—back to the instrument he loved. Sitting safely in his home right now is actually the grand piano of legendary jazz musician Barry Harris, who was Phil’s mentor and teacher.
Newly independent and only eighteen years old, the two met in 1968 at a school called the Jazz Mobile, which was located in Harlem, New York. Every Saturday, Phil would take free lessons at the Jazz Mobile, sharing the same space with the likes of jazz legends Jimmy Heath and Frank Foster. He recalls fondly the 11 to 4 o’clock schedule that the classes ran on in order to accommodate the gig times of the musicians that taught them. Before Barry Harris, though, was Billy Taylor, Phil’s first jazz piano teacher and the founder of the Jazz Mobile.
Out of Phil’s three musical languages, jazz came last. “I could not play jazz because my parents were very religious…so we played classical music and gospel music.” Phil would not trade in his childhood playing for the church for anything, though, stating that he learned the fundamentals of harmony and ear training through osmosis in church. “One of my greatest gifts at eight was not only reading music, but if somebody came up and said, “I’m going to sing so and so and so,” my ear was so tuned to improvise that I could play for that person.” These skills were transferable to all genres and led to Phil’s greater understanding of his relationship with music. “Music, classical music, does not come from your head or your eyes, it comes from here (motioning towards his heart). Inside. If you know the movement of the music…you’ll be able to play it in any key.”
Phil Bingham is a teacher at Jazz House Kids in Montclair, New Jersey, and is currently a Board member at Keys 2 Success. Phil brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the table, all of which he has garnered through decades of devoting his life to the creation and teaching of music. He may have studied with the world’s most renowned musicians and performed at the most prestigious of concert halls and establishments, but it’s his true dedication to ensuring that young people get to experience the joy of music that makes him shine as an individual and as a teacher. “So you asked for my defining moment in my career, and my answer is the defining moment is now—connecting, developing, searching out, and pouring it into the students, and failing, and succeeding, and doing it all again. Keys 2 Success is about pouring into these students and pouring into you guys the quest to be the greatest musicians. Do you know what spring means? It means that we sow the seeds for a new tomorrow. With Keys 2 Success, we are sowing the seeds. We are going to spit out of Newark the great prodigies—the students who would have never had an opportunity to play the piano”.
Everyone who lives inevitably leaves their mark on the world and people around them—Phil Bingham has left a life-changing mark on more aspiring, young, musicians than one can even begin to imagine.
Interview conducted by Seraphina Taylor; article was written by Ella Platts
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Our Board, together with the Board members of our community partner, ACCA Creates, attended a day-long Board Bootcamp taught by Laura Otten, who is a nationally recognized expert in numerous aspects of nonprofit management and governance. Our board receives annual training to help Keys 2 Success build a sustainable future.
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Mental Health Podcast Release!
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Made by a former intern of Keys 2 Success, Sydney Fink, the podcast “Conversations with Sydney” offers solutions for parents, teens, schools, and communities to respond to the crises of teen mental health. It’s being released by WBGO, a public radio station in Newark, and is an offering for Mental Health Awareness Month. You can listen to the series on Apple podcasts, NPR, Amazon Music, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts!
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George Li is a renowned pianist who first gained attention by winning the 2015 Silver Medal in International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He’s played in Carnegie Hall, Davies Hall in San Francisco, the Mariinsky Theatre, Elbphilharmonie, Munich’s Gasteig, the Louvre, Seoul Arts Center, Tokyo’s Asahi Hall and Musashino Hall, NCPA Beijing, Shanghai Poly Theater, and Amici della Musica Firenze.
And last month, our friends at New Jersey Symphony arranged for George to spend time with Keys 2 Success students at Pennington Court Center of Hope. All of our students were amazed by George's flying fingers as he played Liszt's La Campanella. Unintimidated, our students asked to play their solos for him and peppered him with all kinds of personal questions.
They even challenged George to a chromatic scale time-test, and he was able to play the chromatic scale both up and down the keyboard in 11 seconds! So now, when you come into our classroom, you can expect to hear our students working on their chromatic scales.
This is the power of music to bring out the best in all of us!
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On Sunday, April 23, Keys 2 Success students, staff, and volunteers participated in the live Practice-A-Thon concert held at the New Providence United Methodist Church. It was an afternoon filled with love, the arts, and talented people who performed on the piano, danced, sang, and recited poetry. We even had a small art exhibit! We enjoyed a bonding of fellowship afterward as we gathered in our lounge to talk and share delicious food and drink, generously baked and donated by members of the church.
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Artists from near and far who participated in the Practice-A-Thon, also sent in videos that were shown at the concluding celebration live-streamed on YouTube on Friday, May 5th. Take a peak by clicking on the video below!
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We are so thankful to all of you who donated so generously to the Practice-A-Thon Fundraiser. We are now able to purchase our own mini-van which will serve to transport instruments, staff, and volunteers to provide piano lessons in 8 different locations all over Newark. Not only during the Summer time, but throughout the year!
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