Oberlin College Student, Recent Alum Bring Music to Local Children By Sue Kropp
	Photos		SEPTEMBER 14, 2000--Since his graduation from the College in December 1999, Guy Mendilow has been sticking close to Oberlin. "I wanted to participate in the commencement exercises with my class," says Mendilow, "but I began teaching music to kids in several local schools and decided to stay in Oberlin." Mendilow was coordinating a music program for the Lucy Idol Center--a center for severely handicapped individuals--in nearby Vermilion when he heard about the KIDsmART program at the Oberlin Early Childhood Center (OECC). The program, funded by a three-year grant, was developed to increase art education at OECC and at the Linden School in nearby Elyria. Each month the schools hire an artist-in-residence to spend classroom time introducing the children to art. Mendilow, a singer-songwriter, was the artist-in-residence at both schools during July. Brendan Cooney, a double-degree senior from Brookville, Indiana, was Mendilow's assistant. Together, they taught the children at OECC and the Linden School musical concepts that included pitch, texture, rhythm, composition, and improvisation by using movement exercises and hands-on activities. The highlight of Mendilow's residency at the schools was an end-of-summer festival at OECC for students and parents. The festival included a musical parade, art activities for children of all ages, and a sing-along. A group of five- to eight-year olds wrote a play--Jaguar Town--for the festival to showcase skills learned during the summer music program. "The kids did all the work on the play," says Mendilow. "The entire project evolved from a poem that one of the students wrote with Margaret Young during a creative-writing workshop. We took a few ideas from the poem and created a story, which we then used to compose the music and write lyrics." "The kids really pulled it together," says Cooney. "We taught them the skills they needed to create Jaguar Town, and they used them. We just guided them along." The KIDsmART program will continue through the fall at OECC and at the Linden School, but it will go on without Mendilow and Cooney. "I'm staying in town until December," says Mendilow. "I'm finishing up my first album, and then I plan to go out West. I majored in environmental studies, and I'd like to get involved in projects with sustainable agriculture. Eventually, I'd like to teach the concepts of sustainable agriculture in a school setting as a way to build communities." Cooney, who is studying jazz piano in the conservatory and politics in the college, has one more year until graduation. "I can't believe how much I dig kids," he says. "This was such a relaxing summer for me. Working with kids really helped me put my life in perspective. I definitely see teaching as a serious career possibility now."
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