Peabody Institute’s Musician-in-Residence Program aims to bridge the generation gap

Notes cascaded from the pianist Jiacheng Li’s fingers like individual drops of water. Then the drops formed a river that rushed ahead, gaining momentum without somehow sacrificing transparency. Then, in one final headlong downward dash, the stream became a waterfall.

And just like that, 93-year-old Clive Shiff was on his feet.

“That was magnificent,” Shiff said, after the final notes of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 21 in C Major ended during a mid-December concert for residents of Roland Park Place, a continuing care senior citizen center in North Baltimore. “It was unbelievable.”

He wasn’t the only resident to get caught up in the music. A woman turned to an audience member a few seats away and mouthed, “Wow.” Others shuffled their shoes to the beat, or tapped out the rhythm on their walkers.

Li and cellist Alexander Wu, his classmate at the Johns Hopkins University’s Peabody Institute, performed for about 75 residents as part of its innovative Musician-in-Residence Program that aims to bridge the gap between generations. Each year, Roland Park Place provides a graduate student with an apartment for the school year. This year, that graduate student is the 24-year-old Wu. In exchange for room and board — which represents a savings for this year of up to $14,000 according to the school’s website — he holds open practice sessions and organizes weekly classical music concerts for the residents that feature himself and guest artists from Peabody.

And if the seniors can’t attend the concerts because they have limited mobility, Wu comes to them, bringing his cello to residents’ rooms.

“This program lets us get to know one another as people,” Wu said. “And it is contributing to my growth and development as a musician.”

The program began in 2015, the brainchild of former Peabody graduate student and classical guitarist Julien Xuereb. The French-born musician was so energized by his experience of living for a year and performing at the Springwell Senior Living Community in North Baltimore that he applied for a grant to formalize the program and expand it to other retirement communities.

Now, five Peabody students are in residence at four senior centers: Roland Park Place, Springwell, North Oaks in Pikesville and the Edenwald Senior Living Community in Towson, which has two student residents.

According to Xuereb’s website, the guitarist’s two years at Springwell were instrumental in his decision to develop his vocal skills to enhance his performances.

“During this time and after many requests, Julien started singing songs to the residents and developed a repertoire of acoustic covers,” the website says. Now, Xuereb’s vocal renditions of French standards and American popular songs are a significant component of his career.

Playing to the audience

Khandeya Sheppard, the Peabody’s manager of community partnerships, said that Xuereb’s experience demonstrates why the program is so important for students. It’s not unusual, she said, for graduate students preparing for a professional career to get so caught up in developing their technical mastery that they never learn how to connect with real-world audiences. Though students perform recitals as part of their schooling, they mostly are performing for their classmates and professors and other professional musicians.

“After the students start performing at the senior centers, we often hear from their professors that the emotiveness of their playing has improved,” Sheppard said. “What has been going on in their worlds has changed their sound. By the end of the year, you can really start to see that growth.”

Even after one semester, Wu senses that he has a firmer grasp on what audiences need and how to put together an engaging program. The residents at Roland Park Place are sophisticated and astute listeners, he said. While none of his neighbors has given him technical pointers yet, Wu said that the residents occasionally question his musical interpretation.

“A few weeks ago, I was playing a Bellini cello sonata,” he said. “Some of the residents thought I played some of the passages a little bit too harsh, while other parts were too soft. Some of their insights are very good.”

The benefits to the seniors extend beyond free concerts. Studies on the impact of classical music on the aging brain have documented effects ranging from increased longevity to improved cognitive performance.

Becki Bees, vice president of sales and marketing for Roland Park Place, noted that Wu also performs for seniors living with Alzheimer’s disease and dementia in the facility’s memory care community.

“We’ve found that music can have therapeutic benefits for memory and mood,” she said.

It’s the residents who interview the prospective candidates for the program, and residents who select the winning applicant. And it was resident Dick Springer who tracked down the used Steinway piano on which Li performed after the retirement center’s previous piano — also a Steinway — was reclaimed by its owner.

Springer, 93, said that while the students’ musicianship is important, residents also are looking for applicants who can connect with their elderly neighbors. For foreign-born applicants, he said, communicating with a population that often suffers from hearing loss requires solid English skills, too.

Wu stood out immediately, he said. Residents were won over by the cellist’s passion and his poise.

“Alex impressed everyone,” Springer said. “He had the right personality, and he made a polished presentation.”

Living in harmony

While the attraction of what amounts to a $14,000 stipend exerts a powerful appeal, Sheppard said, the musicians in residence program isn’t for everyone. So far, she said, there have been no complaints from the retirement communities about loud, late-night beer blowouts. Partly, that’s because the program is open only to graduate students — who are older and presumably more mature than their college counterparts — and partly because pursuing a serious classical music career tends to be incompatible with a party hearty lifestyle.

And as the days pass, and Wu and the residents get to know one another, opportunities for socializing expand. In addition to concerts and rehearsals, there are dinners and drinks. A musician-in-residence at another facility adopted a puppy to the delight of her new neighbors, and another organized a “musical bingo” game that has proven extremely popular.

While music is a shared passion for the seniors and students, over time the topics of conversation have broadened. Wu and Springer discovered that they both love the outdoors; Wu is a former Eagle Scout who enjoys hiking, camping, canoeing and archery, while Springer was a lifelong skier.

And despite the seven-decade age gap, the student and the seniors occasionally discover that they have faced similar challenges, such as adjusting to life in a foreign land. Wu was born in the U.S., but his family is from Taiwan. Li came to the U.S. only recently from his native China. Springer, a career diplomat, lived for much of his life in Switzerland. Shiff, a professor emeritus of microbiology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, grew up in the nation formerly known as Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and trained in South Africa.

Living in a foreign country requires self-confidence and a tolerance for risk — two qualities also required for solo musical performances.

In a review of the concert that Springer drafted for Roland Park Place residents, he wrote:

“I have often thought of the courage it takes for a solo cellist to perform without the backup of a pianist. He is completely exposed. It is particularly true of a young person like the students who come to us from Peabody. I have great admiration for them.”