Music for Life: The Story of New Horizons

(Announcer) Production funding for this program is provided in part by the Waldron Rise Foundation, and from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(Music) (Peter Webster) - It's a whole new, old experience.

That's being reborn.

(Duane Palyka) - It was amazing that my body--after fifty years--still remembers that, like getting on a bicycle.

And I didn't fall off.

(Sue Wolfe) - I just sit there and think: I can actually do this.

I--I'm actually sitting here, playing.

I never thought I would do that.

It's--it's amazing.

It's a wonderful feeling.

(Gwen Luke) - Happy.

I belong.

We have treats between band practice, and we...visit with each other.

And then we get back to playing again.

(Donna Gates) - I think it's an extraordinary program.

And, um, it-- it has given a new life to a lot of people.

(Marian Claus) - And it just happened, the New Horizons orchestra started the year that my husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

And I say that it literally, saved my life.

Going to New Horizons.

It was a wonderful thing.

(Roy Ernst) - When my parents retired, and I was seeing all their friends in retirement, it looked to me like there wasn't enough to really do, that there was a lot of watching TV, for some people, it was playing golf, and, uh, not too many years later they died.

And so, I thought it would really be good if they could have an opportunity to do things that are challenging and give a sense of accomplishment.

In the mid-nineteen- eighties, I started thinking about how good music would be for retired people.

(Music) (Donna Gates) - I studied piano as a child, up through high school I studied piano.

I've always played the piano just for my own enjoyment.

I was never really good enough to play, you know, I didn't play much out for audiences but I would play for my own enjoyment.

Then when I had children, when I had my daughter, anytime I sat at the piano, she would sit there and go bang bang bang and that was kind of the end of it.

So for years I didn't touch the piano.

(Marian Claus) - The music teacher in our small school in our small town came up to me when I was in 7th grade and said, "I want you to play cello."

I said, "what's a cello?"

When I was a senior, I went to Albany to the state contests.

From that contest, that state contest, I got a scholarship to Nazareth College on my cello.

Actually, I was more advanced than the nun who was the cello teacher then.

She was actually a piano teacher and she took up a little bit of cello.

So, I took cello lessons at Eastman and I went for two years.

The war came along.

This was in 1942.

The war came along and there were a lot of changes in our lives.

So, I got a job and I met the man that was going to be my husband and we got married.

Then he got called up and then I went in the Marine Corps.

And then I didn't play the cello for over 50 years.

(Music) (Chick Wolfe) Well, I started in junior high school, 7th grade, I played trombone through, what, 7th, 8th, 9th grade.

Through that junior high school.

Well went to high school playing the trombone.

I played Tuba all through high school, basically all through college.

Pretty much hung it up after I got out of college.

(Roy Ernst) My parents loved music, and as children they didn't have the opportunity to take music lessons.

They both grew up in poor families.

And our family didn't have a lot of money either, but it was a great family.

They really wanted my brothers and myself to have music lessons.

There were times when my Dad would be out of work for a while and the family discussion would be that we're going to have to cut back on this, we're going to have to cut back on that, but we're going to keep the music lessons going.

So music lessons were a high priority for my family.

I started playing the flute when I was about 8.

I enjoyed playing music, I took lessons from a very good teacher.

I was offered a music scholarship to Wayne State University, which was a big thing because I wouldn't have afforded to go to college otherwise.

And then from then on, it was just all music all the time.

I started teaching at Eastman, I believe it was 1976, and was involved in many things; writing books, developing curriculum, mainly concerned with my music education students.

I also remember visiting some nursing homes and seeing some people who looked to me like they probably had some good capabilities playing on simple little rhythm instruments, and thinking to myself, "That person might be a retired engineer.

That person is probably capable of doing something much more than this and would probably like a chance to do that."

When I started the New Horizons band in Rochester, all I did was put some notices in the paper that we were starting a new program of music for people over the age of 50.

I thought, "I might be the only person in the world who thinks this is a good idea, and maybe no one will show up for the informational meeting."

And a reporter asked me, "Well what are you hoping for here?"

And I said, "Well, there's no track record for this.

So I really don't know, but I would be delighted if we got, let's say, 15 students."

Well we started with close to 40.

(David Hall) I've always had a hankering to be in a band, but I never had the opportunity growing up, my school, I was brought up in England, my school didn't have a music department.

So I decided when I retired that I wanted some endeavor that was going to keep me occupied.

I looked around at what musical facilities there were and everybody required experience in instruments, so I took up water-color painting.

And I was taking lessons down at the art gallery one day and I heard this god-awful noise coming from upstairs and it was most discordant.

(Discordant music) (David Hall) And I asked the teacher, "What's going on upstairs?"

And she said, "Oh that's the New Horizon's band, they're this new band and they're just learning to play."

And I said, "That sounds interesting."

And she said, "Yes, it's an organization for older people."

So that whetted my appetite for this.

I got ahold of Roy Ernst, I was told that he was the man who started it, and called Roy and said, "I'd be interested in his band."

And he said, "Well, what instrument do you play?"

And I said, "Well, I don't play anything yet."

He said, "What would you like to play?"

I said, "The French Horn sounds very nice to me, I've always admired that instrument."

"Great!"

Roy said.

"We need French Horns in the band."

(Sue Wolfe) So, I saw the notice in the paper that they were going to have a class for beginners and I went and Roy said what do you want to play?

And I said I don't know.

He said what've you got sitting around the house?

I said tubas of course.

(laughs).

He said great, we need tubas.

(David Hall) Later I understood, anybody who called up said, "Oh we need Clarinets.

We need some...you know.

He was just in the organizational stage."

(Sue Wolfe) We sounded so awful.

We couldn't play because we were laughing so hard sometimes.

We sounded so bad.

I think that was the most fun any of us ever had; playing in that beginner's class.

We got better very slowly, but the band was not very good at that time either.

When Chick came to hear us play he said you sound like a pretty bad junior high school band.

But, at one point, I felt capable of playing in a pretty bad junior high school band, so I did and I don't think I was much worse than most of the other people.

(Carole Evans) There were people who had never played before, I had never played the saxophone before.

(George Greer) People that couldn't read a note of music, even.

(Carole Evans) Yeah, it was horrible.

(George Greer) The early sessions of practice for the New Horizons Band, when it really was in the pre-learning stage, almost, was in the Ballroom of the Cutler Union at the University of Rochester, now the Memorial Art Gallery.

But there are some offices for Memorial Art Gallery people in close proximity to that, and they requested to their management that they please find some other place for the band to rehearse cause it was driving them nuts.

(Music) (Howard Porter) So it started as a 35 or 40 piece band.

It is now well over 200 members.

(Music) (Howard Porter) And of course as it grew in size we had to change how we rehearsed, what groups we formed, and the structure of the program.

And so there is a green band, or a beginning band, and that's the band you join if you're starting from scratch.

(Music) (Howard Potter) And then there is a concert band, which members, when they feel they're ready to join the concert band, they can bump up to the concert band.

That's sort of the intermediate level.

(Music) (Howard Potter) - And then there's the symphonic band which they can join when they think they're ready and when their mentors think they're ready; and that's more of an advanced group.

(Music) (Howard Potter) - And the same with the orchestra.

There are green strings, there is an ensemble for just the strings in the orchestra, and then there's a full symphony orchestra.

(Music) (George Greer) - I play in the clarinet ensemble, there's a flute ensemble, a brass ensemble, a saxophone ensemble... (Carol Evans) - A chorus.

(George Greer) - There's even a vocal chorus, yes.

(Singing) (Howard Potter) - So there's an entry level for every skill set, and it's set up to be as welcoming as possible.

(Roy Ernst) - In some cases, people try to serve the beginners by saying, "You can play in the advanced group and we'll give you extra help" and the reality is that it's such an intimidating experience that makes people feel like I'll never be able to do this."

And so people want to be experiencing the same thing.

They want to be at the same level that other people are at, and so it's important to always have a beginning group each year for a New Horizons program.

(Priscilla Todd Brown) There are a lot of people who said oh you know I always wished I could have played the saxophone or I wish... and that's the beauty of this program is that we can take absolute raw beginners who don't know how to put an instrument together and start from scratch and work with them.

(Donna Gates) It happens all the time, we see it all the time with New Horizons, that people walk in who maybe haven't played their instrument in 20 maybe 40 years, 50 years.

More like 50 right?

Or maybe never played an instrument at all.

(Music) (Priscilla Todd Brown) Frequently the people who haven't played in 50 years or so, will come back into the beginning band to kind of get the rust off a little bit.

Also in the beginning band I get players who for physical limitations may want to switch an instrument, maybe for physical limitations, maybe because they've just decided that they don't like the instrument.

But they have some background and they can some reading and production of sound and so they will come into Green Band for a while to learn a new instrument.

(Duane Palyka) I sat in on a lot of different New Horizons Bands, the first week that I joined New Horizons.

I wanted to try everything.

And I sat next to this lady in the Red Band.

And she says: "You see me today, but you're not going to see me next week."

And I says: "Why?"

She says: "I'm going to take up the clarinet and go back to the Green Band."

And you find people that will do that in New Horizons.

Which is very interesting and it's very tempting to take up a new instrument and going back to the beginning again because they loved the experience of the beginning Green Band.

(Howard Potter) For decades the focus of music education has been on young, very young people, elementary, middle school and high school and some college.

But the idea of large, dynamic, vibrant programs for adults is a new thing and really we can point to Roy for that.

(Sue Wolfe) Uh, that's a "G", then I have to think.

B Flat, okay.

(Music) (Sue Wolfe) The older you get the heavier a tuba gets and carrying that thing around, I thought, I'm not going to be able to do this forever.

So I picked, I thought, I'd like something smaller but not too small.

I don't want one of those small nuisance instruments like flutes.

(laughs) Or clarinets.

Then I thought I could take up euphonium, but my tuba is an E-Flat tuba and the fingerings are entirely different from a euphonium and I'd just get confused.

So I thought trombone!

So I'm trying to learn trombone.

(David Hall) Progressively over the years I developed osteoarthritis in my hands and my fingers got less and less supple, so I didn't have the dexterity to continue with the French Horn, I could get the valves down all right, but any fast piece I couldn't keep up with.

So, I realized I was going to have to quit.

So I actually left the band for a year and I was miserable.

Roy always said that he thought retirement was when people went, sat on the sofa all day, watched TV and died.

And there's something to that.

If you don't have something that can occupy your mind and keep your intellectual capabilities up, I think you do degenerate health-wise.

People were encouraging me to look around at some other musical endeavor that I could do.

Roy Ernst in particular, I think he might have been the one who first suggested the trombone, because that, you don't have to press any valves, as long as you can move that slide back and forth.

So, I decided to give it a go.

(Trombones playing scale) (Wind chime in the wind) (Marjorie Relin) Almost two years ago my son died.

And it was a horrible, horrible shock.

And less than two months later, I had this heart attack.

And my doctor said definitely it's from the stress of this.

It was a very unusual heart attack and I was in the hospital for 6 days very worried, very frightened.

And also frightened about, you know, what I'd be to do in the future if I recovered.

All the time I was in the hospital, even though I love gardening and I love baking and I love reading and I love playing with my grandchildren and I love so many things.

I love biking.

That it was the oboe that I was really worrying about.

I was wondering how I was going to play that oboe and how without it what my life would be like.

So when I came back to the cardiologist a couple of weeks later I came with my oboe and with a beginners reed that I had gotten at a music shop a very easy to blow reed and I said: "I want you to listen to this.

And I want you tell me if I can play."

And he listened and he said: "5 minutes.

5 minutes at a time that's enough right now."

And then the next time, because he saw me regularly then, he said: "Okay, 10 minutes."

And I was so excited to just play for a few minutes.

I was like "Oh my gosh I might get my life back."

That felt like my life getting back.

Playing the oboe was just so important to me.

To make me feel like a whole person.

So I felt very lucky to get it back.

I was out of orchestra and band a long time because of the death of my son and then because of the heart attack and then slowly I came back to it.

And by the end of the year I was in the concerts in Eastman.

(Emotional music) (Roy Ernst) Good music means something, it expresses something.

Senior adults are very good at playing expressively.

They have a lot of life experience to draw upon.

That really has a good effect on the performance.

I can remember conducting a Bach aria and there's some people crying and I said: "you know, kids could not do what we just did.

They haven't had enough people die.

They don't know what struggle is.

They don't know what hard times are about.

They haven't had enough life to play with that kind of expression in music."

(Christopher Seaman) When you play a great piece of music you're in the presence of something far greater than yourself.

And I think that anything that takes us out of ourselves, is healthful.

And anything that drives us back into ourselves is unhealthy.

I'm speaking as if I'm a trained doctor, shrink and everything else.

I'm none of the above, but I have observed it.

And it's a very wonderful thing.

(Priscilla Brown) We all know how music changes your life, I mean, you're sitting in a quiet room and all of a sudden a beautiful song comes on and it transports you to a different area.

I mean, it can lift you out of any kind of mood, it can change your mood, its a wonderful thing to have, music is a wonderful thing, so its great to have the support, not only for the kids in school but for people their whole life long.

(Music) (Dr. William Hall) The ideal activity for older people who want to improve their health status, their cognition, and also their chances of living a very healthy older life is you have to combine things.

A perfect exercise combines the physical, both in terms of muscle development and physical conditioning of the cardiovascular system.

Some form of mental activity that allows us to develop new memories and keep new memories and it has some kind of socialization.

What music and particularly group music and performance does it satisfies a number of those criteria I mentioned.

Particularly I suppose if you carry a big brass instrument or a cello you get a lot of exercise getting it in there.

But the whole idea of working in a group for a goal and an activity having the motor skills for playing music and also to have the memory skills putting that all together it's probably a perfect exercise.

(David Hall) Playing music is a very complex operation as you've probably realized.

I mean the coordination of the senses is really demanding.

It's amazing how the fact that you can read music, translate it into muscular activity, remember what the notes are, what the sequence is, and reflect all that in a split second is an amazing achievement.

And when I switched to learning the trombone I thought "Gee, learning the French Horn at age 62 was an achievement but learning the trombone at the age of 82 is going to be a real challenge."

(Duane Palyka) As a senior, I encourage other seniors, you know this music stuff is the best thing for your brain.

It uses all aspects of your brain.

And for seniors who have the opportunity, we need to develop our brains and keep our brains active going into old age.

When, if we don't they'll atrophy.

They'll deteriorate.

So I in particular pay a lot of attention to that.

(Dr. William Hall) So some years ago when the Eastman started the New Horizons Band, for me it wasn't just some sort of a phenomenon of saying 'look at these old people, a few of these old people can do' but it was a serious effort to help people to age in a much more beneficial way and its been very successful from what I've seen of it.

(Donna Gates) Well this room has been converted into a sewing room since I took on the project of making costumes for Swan Lake.

I have had so many hobbies over the years, quilting and jewelry making and knitting and things like that, but they've all been solitary.

Just getting out, at least twice a week and being with other people makes a huge difference because I live alone and I would lead a rather isolated life if I were not with the band people.

(Roy Ernst) Socialization is an important part of New Horizons music for some people maybe it's the most important part.

(Music and background chatting) (Dr. William Hall) I think New Horizons is maybe one of the best examples of how you can incorporate socialization into a program.

Because what is the goal of developing musical expertise as a performer when your age 70 or 60?

Well part of it is that it's a skill that you want to develop or to enhance.

But it's also a way of meeting people.

(Howard Potter) When I was going to go out to New Horizons for the first time the faculty told me, they said: "Now if you're going to work with New Horizons, make sure that you stick to the schedule.

And you allow for those breaks to happen.

Because we have breaks built into the sectionals and they're usually 10 or 15 minute breaks in the morning, where all the members go down to the main hall and have coffee and tea and donuts and so on together and they have a chance to talk and mingle.

(Ben David Aronson) And some people are very serious about making sure that they get down there on time so they can eat drink and make merry with their friends.

(Roy Ernst) I have always thought that people need a chance to talk to each other, so a coffee break is an important part of a New Horizons rehearsal.

It might have something to do with the fact that I like coffee and I want a coffee break myself.

But I think opportunities to socialize are really important.

(Dr. William Hall) It's incredible, you have a built in agenda to discuss and develop mutual interests, so almost all the successful activities that I've been involved in, in aging, if they haven't had a socialization component, they just won't make it.

(Howard Potter) Generally speaking musicians at a place like Eastman are all about work and they'll rehearse right through breaks to try and perfect some particular musical thing they're working on.

But they were very emphatic about telling me not to do that, and make sure that these folks get their breaks.

Because the social component of it is very important.

And sure enough I got to where I was looking forward to the breaks too, because I could meet with people and talk with them as well.

(Roy Ernst) Really, really good friendships develop.

Very close friendships develop.

There have been numerous marriages within New Horizons groups.

(Arthur Kolko) So what does this mean?

(Carol Evans) Well this means that we're life partners.

(George Greer) We're a couple, but we're not married.

(Carol Evans) Life partners?

(George Greer) Life partners.

(Carol Evans) That's what we're calling ourselves.

(George Greer) Viewed as a couple.

We would never, under the sun, would have connected without New Horizons.

Carol makes me happy.

When I'm happy my kids notice it and tell me they're glad to see me happy again.

And I hope I make Carol happy.

(Carol Evans) You make me very happy.

(Music) (Christopher Seaman) The New Horizons Band has mentors and these are all students at the Eastman School of Music and that is very good for both sides.

It's naturally very good for the players in New Horizons Bands to get young blood coming in helping them showing them the way round technical things, maybe a better fingering.

A better way to use your mouth and tongue and so on.

But it's also very good for those students, I mean we all loved our Grandparents and to be able to do something for someone elderly while your early 20's, should be, I mean anyone with any generosity of spirit at all, will not only do it out of generosity, but will get a real kick out doing it.

And so both sides benefit that's a very good thing.

(Donna Gates) The mentor program has been wonderful.

These young people that come from Eastman are such amazing musicians and they absolutely treat us with so much respect and they teach us so much.

(Howard Potter) So every time we hire these, what I call "Kids" and what New Horizons calls "Mentors".

When we hire these wonderful 20-somethings they're fabulous musicians, great artists, but what they're also learning is the art of teaching, the art of relaying ideas and explaining to people how one plays, how one develops better tone and so on and so forth.

So they also learn basic teaching skills.

(Ben David Aronson) it doesn't change the pitch, because it's starting in tune but it's not ending in tune.

(Norman Gonzales) To be honest I feel like being a musician you never stop learning.

So in a way, you're always a student to the music.

So even in the sense of arriving at New Horizons and being somewhat of a leader and providing that, that leadership to help other people who want to pick your brain about your instrument.

I, myself was also learning in the process of talking to a different generation from me.

(Marian Claus) I think it's a marvelous experience.

It's a life experience.

They need to be in different generations, they need to realize how other people are in this world.

I think it's difficult for some of these conductors who are students themselves to relate to older people.

They just don't know how to handle us.

(Anyango Yarbo Davenport) I think it's a challenge working with anybody because we're all so different.

I think it demands more creativity from me in the sense of being able to explain things in different terms.

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that I think will help us maintain the tempo.

You have to be able to connect with anybody, regardless if that's a lawyer, if that's a plumber, if that's a musicologist.

It doesn't matter who they are you have to be able to communicate with them and I think communicating with 30-40 adults from all different avenues who are trying to play the same piece is probably the best possible training I could ask for.

(Music) (Christopher Seaman) You see work can be fun, work should be fun.

When we talk about music we say we play music.

That's the word we use in every language.

"Spiel" in German, "Jouer" in French.

In all languages the word used for music is the same as the word used for sport.

We play music.

We don't work music.

Let's work some music.

No one ever says that.

Let's play some music.

So however hard you try and however difficult it is and however much we all struggle, we all struggle with our own limitations our physical limitations.

Everyone has physical limitations on an instrument or singing or our personal limits.

Maybe we're shy and it's difficult to perform in front of.

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whatever our limitations, if it in the end isn't in the deepest sense of the word fun.

In the deepest sense of the word fun it's not worth doing.

We play music.

(Roy Ernst) When young people start music it's very often because their parents think this will be good for them to do and so sometimes the young student is practicing because it is required by the parents, not always, but often.

With New Horizons musicians starting music is a choice.

Deciding to practice is a choice.

No one is telling them to do that.

They're doing it for their own reasons and they like to practice a whole lot.

Retired people value this opportunity very much.

And they give their all to it.

(Priscilla Brown) Retirement is supposed to be fun, it should be fun, it should be about learning, continuing to learn without the pressure, without the tests, without the evaulations that are going to come.

So I think people love to continue to learn but they know its not a career choice so that pressure is not on them.

(Anyango Yarbo Davenport) This is the time to do everything else you weren't able to do because you had other responsibilities like family, like job, you know, the things we face in everyday life and sometimes to make things happen we can't always follow our passion necessarily and with retirement that's another opportunity to just open a new door.

(Howard Potter) One of the biggest lessons for all of us is that, music, in the final analysis is an emotion and you don't have to be a professional to pick up on that emotion and you don't need to be a professional to create that emotion it can be done by all of us.

(Duane Palyka) When I was a kid, when I was growing up, it was "Oh I gotta do this half an hour.

I've got to play this thing.

Okay half an hour's done, I'm done!

I'm outta here!"

But now, it's a matter of, I play because I want to play.

And I play music I want to play.

And I play for as long as I want to play.

And it's a much different way of dealing with the music.

(Duane saxophone solo) (Band warming up) (Roy Ernst) New Horizons programs generally try to do everything they can that will be helpful to their communities.

One of the things is performing in elementary schools, for elementary children and also with elementary children.

Of course they love each other.

You can be sure that the Grandmas and the Grandpas are going to love those kids.

And the kids love being with the grandmas and grandpas also.

(Debbie Parker) When this concert starts, we are all together on the stage.

We all introduce, we sit New Horizons, French Road child, New Horizon, French Road and we introduce ourselves and we play together as a nice warm up and get together.

Then we break off into small chamber groups because we thought that's where the interaction was really going to happen.

And that's what it's all about.

When the New Horizons Kids and the French Road Kids break into their small chamber groups, I do ask that they learn a little bit about each other.

And they stop playing their instruments, take a little break, well the conversations can get going.

And one time their was a conversation with a child who said "You know I'm finding it really hard to play my instrument with all my braces."

And the New Horizons Member said: "Oh yeah?

You should try it with dentures.

It's not so easy there either."

(laughs) So, they find some commonalities sometimes its with the braces and the dentures and sometimes its learning high register fingerings, but whatever it is it all comes together at this concert.

(Dr. William Hall) It's often said it takes a village, right.

To raise children.

And there are increasingly fewer opportunities for young people to be very close to older people.

The nuclear family or the extended nuclear family doesn't exist for most of us.

In a sense there's loneliness on both sides in that relationship.

In the case of New Horizons as people have learned a new skill and not only have they learned it and enjoyed it and have some socialization with their peers, but now they're able to actually engage younger people in a meaningful activity where they are contributing something to that younger person, that's incredible, what that does for a society is just incredible.

(Priscilla Todd Brown) There are a group of people from New Horizons now who are volunteering in one of the city schools and they're going over after school and working with the students on a one-to- one or a small group basis.

Which everyone knows you can't top a one-to-one experience.

(Stephen Georger) During the day I have a small portion of my time that is allowed for me to give lessons to some of our students.

There isn't enough time in the day for me to give lessons to all of the students.

So this partnership has allowed volunteers from New Horizons to come in and work with the students on a very small group basis, probably no more than 2 students per lesson group.

(Priscilla Todd Brown) Even as a beginning older student going into an elementary school the kids are having trouble figuring out how to produce a sound.

So in order to help them you have to stop and figure out what it is that you're doing.

So there's a lot of analyzing going on in order to explain what you're doing to that child.

Even if they're not fabulously accomplished on their instrument it makes them stop and think so that they can explain it to this child.

And while you're teaching you're learning.

It works both ways.

(Older man) Alright, hey you guys did it better that time!

You're making progress there!

(Arthur Kolko) The New Horizon's people.

The people that come to our rehearsals are people who are at the end of their life cycles.

I don't mean immediate, but in terms of numbers that we have.

I'm, right now, 71 years old.

I'm at the young end of the age of the people who come.

Many of them are in their mid to late 70s, 80s.

We've got a couple 90 year olds, a few 90 year old people too.

What you have is life experiences.

You have an accumulation of life experiences.

(Stephen Georger) These people bring their lives and what they've done to our students at this school.

Many of these volunteers have had long careers as lawyers, as doctors, as teachers.

Not only do they bring their musical talents and work with our students, but they've also brought their other talents as well.

It's been very interesting because a lot of these students didn't even know that some of these professions even existed.

Sometimes they say, "why is it that you are a doctor, but you know how to play trumpet?"

Just being multi-talented is a very cool thing and that's why music, I think, is important in school.

(Roy Ernst) The big message from this is that music is something you can enjoy for a lifetime.

There they are.

There are the people who now are at a point in their life when they can do whatever they want to do with their time.

They're playing music.

That's the strongest message.

By the way, I get invited to speak to college groups quite a bit and I say, "I'm 76.

I'm still teaching music.

That's what I love to do."

(Donna Gates) Roy is just constantly promoting and growing this program.

Because of the way he is expanding it around the world it is not surprising to me.

There's something that's sort of amazing about it, that it has grown the way it has, but it's not really surprising.

(Roy Ernst) In 1991, we started with a little more than 30 people.

Today we have almost 10,000 people involved in New Horizons programs.

They are in 215 groups in the United States, Canada and several other countries, including Ireland and Australia.

The program continues to grow.

We provide financial support and mentoring for anyone who wants to start a New Horizons program.

I think we will see continued growth in the future.

(Katherine Levy) We've had visitors from other countries, now, come and see our program.

To see how we work with our students.

To see how you could put together a New Horizons program.

The scope of it is wonderful.

I'm so thrilled to see it growing.

(Graham Sattler) New Horizons, the brand, if you like, if I could be so crude as to put it that way.

The brand has immediate association, as far as I can tell.

It kind of cuts to the chase.

It says welcoming, accessible, respectful of this demographic, and it says developmental and educational.

The great thing about New Horizons, too, is that it's very clear that absolute beginners, which really means, people who haven't played or read music in their life are welcome.

They can come along to New Horizons and that can be the beginning.

(Roy Ernst)After the New Horizons program was going for three or four years, I thought we needed a music camp.

That was always part of my concept.

We now have, usually, about 12 music camps a year in many, many attractive places.

Hundreds of people go to music camps every year.

(Katherine Levy) It's amazing and it's only gotten bigger.

I have conducted, now, camps in Georgia and one in Canada.

I am amazed by how this movement has taken off.

(Sue Wolfe) We've been regularly to Chautauqua and several times down Unicoi and to the University of Iowa band camp.

You get to play with all of these fantastic different directors that you've never heard and you get to meet all these people from all around the country and you get to play with them and socialize with them at meals.

It's just a wonderful social, musical experience.

(Earl Henderson) Chautauqua.

Well, I was very intimidated being only one year behind me learning trumpet.

Everybody said go.

No one is going to make fun of you.

You'll do great, fit in, and you'll come back a better person and a better player.

So when registration went online, I was there at the crack of dawn when it went online.

My application was in there and it's been a lot of fun.

(Gwen Luke) Oh, it's so fun.

I love getting up and hearing the laughter of the people visiting.

So I sneak in and join the fun and I've met a lot of new people and I was anxious to come and see what the set up was like.

It's beautiful here.

And the facilities are nice and the food is so good.

I am just enjoying being around people because I live alone.

I've lost two husbands and I've had to start over in life and this is my start over time.

(Howard Potter) One of the high points is playing in the Eastman Theater.

Kodak Hall, we now call it.

I must say, it is pretty spectacular.

Because, first of all, It's one of the great halls in the world.

It's easily comparable to Carnegie or any of the great halls and probably favorably so.

When you are on that stage and you look out to the audience, which for some of these members they've been coming to concerts there for 20, 30, 40 years, and they can't imagine what it's like to be on the stage looking out to the audience.

They get a chance to do that at the end of the year.

It is pretty spectacular.

(Bruce Burritt) Nice and easy.

1,2,3 (Band playing scale) (Alan Woy) The journey here to tonight's gig has just been magnificent.

The journey, remember, is just as important as the gig is.

For sure.

It's just been fabulous putting this program together and dealing with all of the problems and the issues and the success and the temporary setbacks that we fix and all that kind of stuff.

It's all fixed.

Everything is in place, and it's time now to play.

(Band warming up and chatting) (Donna Gates) I'll never forget the first time I played there.

I was so scared.

It was just the idea of being on the Eastman stage.

Whoever would have thought I would be playing on the Eastman stage?

It is a wonderful opportunity and every year, I've done it eleven times now, and every year it just feels like some kind of an amazing experience to be doing that.

(Anyango Yarbo Davenport) Just because somebody isn't able to play something flawlessly, doesn't mean they don't deserve the recognition and the opportunity to perform and share.

And I think that is the beauty of New Horizons is that it moves music out of the elitist point of view and its really for everybody, everybody can sing, everybody can pick up an instrument and play and enjoy it and not be judged.

(Music) (Roy Ernst) One of my expectations was very wrong about New Horizons.

I thought, I'm pretty sure people will enjoy doing this, but I'm not sure anyone will come to a performance.

Because I know that in most community band concerts the audiences are small.

I thought we won't have big audiences.

I was very wrong about that.

Think about it.

Grandma has gone to all those concerts for those kids, all those years and now grandma is playing her first concert.

Families would plan their trips around the concerts.

I would love seeing these groupings after the concert of one of the performers with 50 year old children around them and then the 15 and 16 year old children around them.

And we, indeed, did have very large audiences for our concerts.

So that exceeded my expectations.

(Anyango Yarbo Davenport) I think it enriches the community.

It makes it tighter.

It makes it come together because at the concerts you won't only see friends of the orchestra members.

You will see grandchildren.

You will see the grandchildren's friends.

You will see the friends of the parents.

It brings together everybody.

(Chick Wolfe) Clearly it was a fantastic idea, and that's the thing, it was an idea whose time had come, otherwise you would not see this great proliferation that we've had across the country and beyond, you know, the world was ready for it.

(Priscilla Todd Brown) I just think it's wonderful to see that music is supported in such a way and that it is not for a certain age group.

That it is for everyone.

That it is important as a child, and that you can keep it for your whole life.

Because what do they say?

Music washes away the dirt of everyday life.

(Christopher Seaman) It's an inspiration.

And anyone elderly who doesn't play music when they see elderly people doing their thing in the New Horizons band, they think "Hey, maybe I'm not so old.

Maybe I'll do something."

You know.

"Maybe I'll do Skiing or..." I don't know what to take up in old age.

You just get a sense that it ain't over when you're 70 or 80 or 90.

That a marvelous thing, of course.

(Music) (Man) Production funding for this program is provided in part by the Waldron Rise Foundation, and from viewers like you.

Thank you.