This month, we caught up with 11th grade musician and Elemental Music alum Emma Crawford! Emma participated in two of our ensembles when she was younger: Elemental Band (on flute) and Academy Philharmonic (on oboe).
Dr. Jo loved catching up with Emma on all that she has been doing in high school as an instrumentalist and drum major, her big musical projects, and her past experiences in Elemental Music. Read the interview below!
Josephine Moerschel: What instruments do you play?
Emma Crawford: I play oboe and flute.
JM: Which instrument did you play in Elemental Band?
EC: Flute
JM: What year are you?
EC: Junior, 11th grade.
JM: Which ensembles do you play in at Samohi?
EC: I play oboe in Symphony Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, Pit Orchestra in the spring, and I am assistant drum major of the marching band.
JM: That’s all?! Wow, you are certainly staying busy. Were you in our first year of Elemental Band?
EC: Not of Elemental Band, but I believe I was in the first year of Academy Philharmonic!
JM: Can you think back to your time in either of those programs and share any favorite memories, if there are any?
EC: There are a lot!
Emma performing with Academy Philharmonic
I think the most memorable one that pops into my head is my very first day of Elemental Band. So I was in 5th grade and I had never played with a full band before - I had only played with the flutes and clarinets...maybe we had 1 saxophone, I can’t remember. We were going to play a scale to warm up and we played the first note and I just started laughing because I was like...Wow! We just made this noise, this sound - and it was just glorious. That’s one of the most memorable things.
Another favorite memory is playing Bacchanale* in Academy Philharmonic. I think that was our last concert and I loved that piece, so playing it in my last concert of anything Elemental Music related was really fun – really special.
(*note - our AP students are learning this piece again for our March 2021 concert!)
JM: We did that concert at SMC. Had you played there before?
EC: No, never.
JM: How was that experience? You've gotten to play on all sorts of stages around Santa Monica.
EC: Yes...it was great! By 8th grade I had played in Barnum Hall, which of course is very large. Playing at SMC was fun just because I knew so many professionals had played there - it was just this space that I always thought of as a professional-people space, for real professional musicians.
JM: You know it is a college, so not everybody who plays there is a professional.
EC: Right! Of course. And of course there are professional players occasionally at Samohi also, but in my head, it meant that if you were there, you were top-notch, good - really good.
JM: You have siblings. How many?
EC: I have 3 siblings.
JM: And have you had a role in helping them figure out what instruments they want to play?
EC: I think so. Ryan, my youngest brother, he’s in 5th grade right now. He plays clarinet. He wants to switch to bassoon and he’s too small right now, but that’s his goal. And he wants to play bassoon because I play oboe and they’re both double reeds. So he calls us double reed buddies.
JM: Oh, that’s so sweet!
EC: It’s really great. For Meghan and Ethan, I don’t really know if I helped them choose an instrument. But I definitely have helped them after they’ve chosen an instrument and if they need help deciphering a rhythm or figuring out “what does this Italian word mean?” or how to do different stuff after they picked an instrument.
JM: They’re lucky to have you! So if you had one piece of advice for our current students, what would it be? Music or in general… some bit of elderly advice that you can impart on our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders especially?
EC: The first thing that comes to mind is that if you want to do well in music, then you have to practice!
JM: That is not a bad piece of advice!
EC: I mean...yeah. Another music-related thing is...go to as many concerts as you can. Go to the middle school concerts, go to the high school concerts. If you’re in band, go to a choir concert or an orchestra concert.
JM: And why is that important?
EC: Well, I think it’s just fun to hear all the music that exists. Also, my band director was just talking about this - it’s good to just hear, especially if you play an instrument and you’re going to go to a choir concert! When you have an instrument in your hands, sometimes things like the phrasing and dynamics and the push and pull of a piece can get lost in you trying to blow through your instrument. So you can actually learn a lot listening to other ensembles like choir, even if it’s not on your own instrument. You can learn a lot about music.
JM: Emma, tell me..Do you have musical goals for the future?
EC: At the moment, I’m looking towards applying to colleges as a music education major. So there’s that. Other goals? My short-term goal is to get into All-State this year. (*spoiler alert - she DID!) But a more long term goal is to become a band director probably or some kind of other music teacher.
JM: How do you feel like Elemental Music has helped you keep music in your life? You’ve been in our programs for quite a few years - and were you a mentor for one of those?
EC: I was.
JM: How would you say your continued involvement in the programs has affected you?
EC: Like I previously said, Elemental Band was my first time in a full band in 5th grade. And it was my first time in a full orchestra in 8th grade for Academy Philharmonic. So on top of just learning a lot technically and musically, i also just learned a lot of stuff that helped me grow as a musician and helped me go forward into middle school and then high school.
I learned how to tune an orchestra - I never would’ve known that and I was expected to know that on my first day in orchestra. I learned how to practice big ensemble pieces...I learned a lot. Not just about the music, but also the dedication of playing that you need to play an instrument and do music. Also I just had a lot of fun! I really enjoyed it.
JM: I’m so glad to hear that. That makes me really happy to know that you have such fond memories of being in our programs. So you worked on a little project last year...Can you tell us more about that project?
EC: It was a Gold Award project which is a minimum 80 hours of work towards one goal. I ended up having 131 hours, which is a lot...but I kind of came to the idea years before I was even eligible to start a Gold Award.
JAMS had to cut an orchestra and then a band because there wasn’t enough participation. And I could also see it in Elemental Music - I could see that groups were occasionally dropping in participation.
I have always been in music – it’s always been my passion. I’ve always loved music and I know all the benefits of starting in music, staying in music, continuing in music. So to see people just dropping music or people choosing not to do it just because there were so many other things that they could do...that almost worried me because I’ve seen all the benefits.
I went to Italy during my freshman year of high school. Nobody else in high school gets that, unless they’re in music class. There are not other groups that do that.
JM: Tell us a little bit about the Italy trip. Who was it with and what was your favorite memory from that trip?
EC: I went to Italy during my freshman year of high school with the Samohi Wind Ensemble. We went to Rome so we did a lot of tourist-type stuff, but we also had three concerts. Our second concert was in a basilica, so this ginormous church with the best acoustics I think I will ever hear! So we were warming up in there and it was just so echo-y. We played through one of our pieces – Ms. Woo was conducting it, I think – but we played through it and the last note stayed. It just echoed for like ten seconds and we were all just sitting there super still. And it was perfect, it was amazing.
JM: There’s something to be said for those moments where you know you have the attention and the energy of everyone on stage and everyone in the concert hall. And in the quietest moments...those are so magical. It’s pretty amazing!
Since the start of the pandemic, music-making is very different than it was before the pandemic. What kinds of musical projects have you been part of since March?
EC: Well, the first thing is that I was part of an oboe recital through my private teacher. We all individually recorded ourselves and then we put all the videos together and played it on Zoom. One video would play and we’d all applaud. That was really fun and it was a good introduction to what I was gonna be doing for the next semester.
Then in school, I did a duet over the internet. We recorded ourselves and edited it and then we filmed ourselves and put it all together. And currently we’re working on an orchestra concert. So it’ll be like the Elemental Music one that I know just happened. We all put in our individual recordings and it gets edited together and we work on the balance and dynamics and put it all together to make it an orchestra concert.
JM: It’s not at all the same but it’s pretty amazing to see everyone on the screen playing together!