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This company is instrumental to schools
Music teachers come to private academies, thanks to a small Glenmoore firm.
By Mary Blakinger, Inquirer Correspondent
The Philadelphia Inquirer - Wednesday, March 12, 1997

Jim Ackerman tapped on a music stand to bring all eyes forward, then peered at his flute and clarinet players, alto-sax players and lone percussionist. "You can't rush the last couple notes just becuase they're quarter notes," Ackerman reminded the young musicians. It was a practice session of the St. Joseph School "A" band, comprised of the Downingtown Catholic school's more proficient instrumental musicians. It sounded pretty much like band practices the world over, but there is a difference. Ackerman, 27, a percussionist from West Chester, does not teach for the school. He works for Northeastern Music Programs, a small company in Glenmoore that publishes schoolband music and runs instrumental-music programs for private and parochial schools from Cape May, N.J., to the Poconos. Northeastern's band programs are geared for grades four through 12, and its insturcors are state-certified to teach instrumental music. Larry Rumpf, a teacher and freelance trombone player from Doylestown, shares instructional duties at St. Joseph's one day a week with Ackerman. They oversee band practice for 85 students in grades four through eight in the school's three bands, in addition to giving group instrument lessons. "It's fun, and it gets you relaxed if you're tense," said "A"-band clarinet player Jamie Munnis, 12, a St. Joseph's seventh grader from Downingtown, plays flute and just made the "A" band this year. Why flute? "You have the melody a lot," she said. Northeastern's program enables participating schools to provide a band program at basically no cost to the school. Parents pay about $8.25 tuition each week directly to Northeastern for their child's half-hour group lesson, sheet music and weekly band practice. Northeastern schedules the sessions. All the participating schools have to do is provide space for instruction. Northeastern also sponcers an "honor band" each spring comprised of 70 students selected from participating schools.

Randy Navarre, 45, of East Brandywine, founded Northeastern in 1983 after being laid off from his job with a similar enterprise. He has a doctorate in musical arts and is a classical saxophonist in addition to playing the wind controller, a digital synthesizer. Working from his home in the early 1980s, Navarre began teaching instrumental music in a few schools, gradually expanding and hiring teachers. Today Northeastern has 12 teachers working with bands in 47 private and parochial schools, primarily for grades four through eight. It also provides general music programs at three schools, for which the clients schools pay. The business brings instrumental music instruction to institutions that might otherwise not be able to provide it. Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary School in Wynnewood, for example, has its own general-music program. But there was no band program until the school signed on with Northeastern five years ago, said principal Mary P. Boyle. "The band is a really nice addition to our school. The kids play for our church services as well," Boyle added. In 1992, Northeastern began publishing band music to fill what Navarre thought was a void when it came to interesting music for first- and second-year students. "We're writing music that is easy enough for beginners to play, but doesn't sound like 'beginning band music,'" Navarre said. He began publishing five pieces that a local retailer carried in its catalog. He estimates that Northeastern has now published about four-dozen pieces of music sold by an estimated 100 retailers from Canada to Texas to Norway.