Two years ago, Courtney Remeš restarted violin lessons for the first time since college and joined an adult orchestra at Minneapolis’ MacPhail Center for Music. Time spent learning music provides “a really great outlet,” said Remeš, a web developer by day. “You can’t look at your phone at rehearsal or while playing.”
Like Remeš, about 63% of Minnesotans say they’re involved in the arts in their everyday lives, compared to only 49% nationally. For some, it’s a continuation of a childhood pursuit. For many others, it’s a later-in-life leap encouraged by the state’s vibrant arts community.
Amateur musicians like Remeš are reaping vast benefits: Studies have shown that learning music promotes creativity, improves quality of life and enhances brain functioning. There’s often a positive social aspect to creating music, and it has been shown to reduce stress.
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“At first it was sort of an experiment,” Remeš said. “But I realized over the past year and a half that it has become a really important part of what I say I’m up to these days. It’s added value to my life.”
Karen Moon is Remeš’ teacher at MacPhail and co-conductor of the New Horizons String Orchestra for adults. “A lot of kids have enthusiasm, but the adults really have this profound desire to play,” said Moon, who teaches all ages. “A lot of them have tremendous focus, and they’re paying for this themselves. They just really are devoted.”
She encourages other adults to consider it. “It’s good for your mental health, it’s good for your aging brain,” she said. “It’s a whole world that opens up for you.”
Like Remeš, vocalist Martha Blenkush became familiar with MacPhail through her children’s music lessons. She joined Voices of Experience, the center’s choral group for singers 55 and older. “It is terrific in terms of anti-aging because it is community, it’s the brain challenge of learning new music, it’s the humility practice of taking feedback and trying new things,” Blenkush said. “But then it’s also the joy of creating music together.”
Tom Siler worked professionally as a musician for years when he decided to take piano lessons about 10 years ago. The band lifestyle had grown tiresome, lugging equipment to venues and taking home paltry paychecks. And life started encroaching on bandmates’ time – kids, jobs and other obligations.
“It just became clear that the best way to progress musically would be to do something that I could do on my own, on my own schedule, and practice as much as I like, because I like to practice,” he said.
Siler loved classical music as a kid, but he never learned sheet music until he began to work with piano teacher Julie Sweet. Sweet taught Siler how to sight-read and has been working with him on the art of interpreting scores.
At a recent lesson, she coached him through Claude Debussy’s “Serenade for the Doll,” reminding him to accentuate the rests. “Debussy is very specific about his articulations, his dynamics, his bravado,” she advised. “It’s everywhere.”
Holly MacDonald and John Orbison met in the chorus of a Gilbert and Sullivan Very Light Opera production in 2009. “Music is what brought us together,” MacDonald said.
So when they retired in 2014 (she as a nurse, he as a math teacher) they decided to take up the cello. While learning the new instrument, they also returned to instruments they played as children, the flute and clarinet, while making time for a variety of choral groups, orchestras and small ensembles.
“I love music because it feeds my spirit,” Orbison said. “When you make music with other people, you can’t help but be friends.”
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For Ivy Ng and Jahan Vafaei-Makhsoos, music production lessons at MacPhail are a dedicated date night. Following separate lessons, “we get late dinner afterwards,” Ng said.
They each dabbled with music in the past – Ng in various bands, learning just enough keyboard, guitar and bass to get by, and Vafaei-Makhsoos on mandolin and some piano.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Vafaei-Makhsoos started gathering and building synthesizers. “I had all this musical equipment laying around for me, and I was trying to learn it on my own,” he said. “I wanted some structure.”
Ng, meanwhile, was interested in songwriting. Together they’ve been exploring how to build and layer sounds, each on their own paths while sharing their progress along the way. Vafaei-Makhsoos hopes to put out an album later this year.
“Playing music has always just been something I’ve wanted to do,” Vafaei-Makhsoos said.
