Music Education and the Power of Music: Jephta Bernstein’s Journey to Off the Hook Arts

When I sat down to interview Jephta Bernstein, founder of the local non-profit Off the Hook Arts, I knew it would be a fascinating interview, but I didn’t realize just how much I would learn from her.

Not only did I learn more about her as person, and the creative vision of Off the Hook Arts, but she inspired me to pick up my violin and play for the first time in over six years.

Bernstein’s passion for music is evident in the way she discusses not only her own history, but the classical music genre as a whole through explaining the technical concepts of violin, histories of composers and contemporaries in her field and with the way she explains the science behind her festivals.

When did you start playing violin?

I told my mother that I wanted to play violin when we lived in Princeton. They had a wonderful Suzuki program there where you start with your parents, so my mother and I started together when I was five.

Did you have the little tapes on your bow?

Oh yeah, I did! We also put the egg on top of our violin bows and tried balance it. That was me!

It was much harder for my mother to learn and she quickly fell behind as I began to excel. She became discouraged and eventually quit.

It was because of your unparalleled egg-balancing skills, wasn’t it?

Exactly! Yes, you are so right! But that is how I started.

When we moved to Fort Collins, I went through several teachers before I ended up with Will Schwartz, who was the violin professor at CSU at the time and founded the symphony here in town.

Then I went and studied under Harold Wippler, who was the concert master for the Denver Symphony Orchestra (now the Colorado Symphony Orchestra). He taught some amazing violinists.

What was it about the violin that caused you to stay interested?

It fit my personality perfectly. I used to invite people up from my bedroom window at Princeton to come listen to me practice. I was a very extroverted child and loved the warmth and human sound of the violin.

It’s a very soloistic and individualistic instrument, which matched my personality when I was younger.I believe personalities are matched with your instrument and I definitely fit that mold as a child, less so as an adult.

Now, I find myself gravitating towards the Viola, which has a warm, resonate, really in-your-chest sense to it.

Since Viola is in another clef, did you find it hard to learn or did your previous music experience make it easier?

Because I’d been so versed in reading music, it wasn’t that difficult. The difference is just an interval transfer, so it’s very close to the violin.Sometimes, as an adult, I look the music sheet with brain fog, and I feel total and utter panic. “What am I doing? Where is that?”

It feels like being bilingual sometimes, because music is a language. I remember growing up and swapping back and forth from piano to violin and It would get confusing.

Yes, and you still think in your original mother language.

I also remember having to relearn how to read music because my first fiddle teacher didn’t make me learn the notes, she just wrote the letter A, B, and C instead of the note.

I can imagine that was a very different mind adjustment. Violin and fiddle are very different in the way they are played.

Whenever I switched to violin, I can hear my violin teacher getting onto me about “pancake hand” and I can see you shaking your head-

That is a big peeve of mine. If you watch all the great fiddlers, no one has pancake hand because you can’t shift. I’ve watched fiddlers with pancake hand try to shift and it’s a jarring motion, which often makes them lose a beat.

Whenever I teach my students, we do not move on until they stop doing the pancake hand, as much as it frustrates them.

Speaking of teaching, why do you believe that music education should be accessible to everyone?

There is no other way that a child can get the same experiences, values and impact on their development in the way they think and process information.

Plus, there are so many skills you can gain. For example, just the confidence that comes from believing that you are capable of doing something and that what you have to say is worthwhile.That thrill of being on stage and being successful from doing something that scares the pants off of you. There’s nothing like that rush or thrill.

The thought of, “oh my gosh, I just did that!” builds and builds.It just breaks my heart when parents say they can’t afford to give their students’ lessons, or when parents mention how expensive instruments are.

It also breaks my heart when others say that they grew up in an area where they didn’t have access to a higher level of music, or chamber music and that no one told them how much fun playing an instrument can be.

Music education felt like the logical place to be after I’d already tried it on with someone else’s organization, and I took it in a different direction and put different spins on it to make it fit with the needs and atmosphere of Fort Collins, which is different than Texas.

Did working with the chamber music program in Austin give you the realization that you wanted to create a non-profit of your own?

Yes. I worked with salon concerts. I ran CHAMPS, which was the education side of the program, The goal of the program was to place chamber music programs in schools. And I realized that I absolutely loved every aspect of it.

From directing the program towards low-income students, to interacting with parents and making collaborations happen with musicians in the community.

When we moved back to Fort Collins, people encouraged me to do something similar to what I did in Austin. That’s when I started the education program in September of 2012.

From there, I started the music festival as fundraiser for the educational program and invited Bruce Adolphe to join me.

I found myself calling Bruce every year after our initial festival saying “Hey, should we do this again?” and it just became a habit before we eventually rebranded ourselves as Off the Hook Arts.

What is one way that Off the Hook Arts goes against the negative stereotype that often surrounds classical music?

Something we do at our concerts is bring people to undefined spaces to hear music. It is not a concert hall where the audience is so far removed from the performer and isn’t as formalized. All of a sudden, it loses its mystique.

There is something about sitting in Grace Church and letting that music just enter you because you are so close to the performer that it feels almost like they’re playing just to you.

A big movement in classical music has formed to guide classical music away from more formalized spaces so that people feel connected.

I remember attending the Shai Wosner concert at Grace Church and for the first time, I felt the power that classical music has. I found myself being lulled through the peaceful parts of the composition, only to be jarred back into reality from an unexpected chord progression. I never felt that emotional response to classical music before.

One of my favorite things about working with all of the interns that we have is that we introduced all of you to a different way of thinking about classical music.

I don’t think I’ve heard from anybody that they hate sitting through the concert, or “I hate this music.” I hear that all of you have a newfound interest in classical music.

Right there, we’ve changed the minds and lives of 10 people! It’s so exciting and I hope that all of you will continue to be curious about classical music after your internships are over.

Going back to the intimacy of your shows, do you intentionally pick venues that are very small and can only hold a couple-hundred people?

We always do. We took a chance with the Rialto this year with the Brentano String Quartet. I wanted to put them in a hall that was bigger because our venues are usually smaller, holding only around 100 people.

So, I wanted to experiment with a bigger space and see if we could get more people, but we lost the flavor and intimacy there. We did another concert with Brentano in Boulder at a beautiful church and it was a way better concert.

Venues are something we always struggle with. I don’t want to lose that flavor or intimacy and so we’re going to stick with that design, even as we grow. I would rather do two of the same concerts on different days than lose that.

Finally, what is the most rewarding aspect of Off the Hook Arts?

The students who have been with us since we started and watching them grow. And we’ve changed peoples’ relationships with themselves through music.The students are exposed to different musicians, ways of thinking about an instrument and how they’re playing music.

They also think about how they feel about being a musician and get better over the years. I can see it in my kids and other kids in the program.We’ve connected with a huge number of people in the community and they thank us for what we bring to the cultural arts here in Fort Collins.

I know we’ve made a difference. We may not be interacting with 160,000 people yet, but in our little corner of the community, we’ve made a difference, and that is pretty amazing.I shouldn’t be running a non-profit if it isn’t meaning anything or doing something valuable, and I believe we have done that.

When you color someone’s life or affect the way that they think about the world, the person next to them and themselves, it’s a pretty amazing feeling.

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Off the Hook Arts is a local music education program which hosts two festivals a year: WinterFest and SummerFest. This year, they are celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday by exploring the power that music has on our health.

Join them June 15-July 1 as they dig deeper into Beethoven’s health issues, and themes of healing through music. For more information, click here.