A Mini-Autobiography of my O-S Life
by Lori Goldschmidt, Charter Member
Conference ’95 – my 20th or so. These yearly events, so packed with the most incredible array of wonders, have been a high point of my life for thirty years. When somone asked at a recent conference, “Who was at the very first conference in Muncie, Indiana in 1969?” I felt such a surge of pride and nostalgia. I was one of only a handful who’d been there too.
How did I get here from there? What interesting strands of life coincidences led me to Muncie, and eventually to Philadelphia? How did I come to make O-S such a central part of my whole being?
It all began in 1961, at a music camp in Canada called CAMMAC. At this time I was a mother of two young children, waiting until they were older to get back to my career as a high school math teacher. While waiting I dabbled in recorder teaching, folk dance teaching, and modern dance. The week we spent at CAMMAC that summer changed my entire life focus. A woman named Edna Knock was in charge of the children’s music program. At the end of the week in trooped our little ones with Miss Knock and twenty or so other children. Their Orff-Schulwerk program totally bowled me over. Only one week’s accomplishment-WOW! I vowed to learn more about this Orff thing.
The following summer we returned to CAMMAC. This time Miriam Samuelson (now at the Orff Institute in Salzburg) was in charge of the children. And, more importantly, the camp organizers had added a course for adults in the basics of O-S. My entire vision changed, as I took a definitive path away from Math and moved whole-heartedly into music. Workshops followd in N.Y.C. and Long Island (long before certification courses). Before long I’d changed the nature of my home recorder classes for children. I’d purchased a fine set of Studio 49 instruments from my earnings, and ran groups in my recreation room all through the 60’s.
Brigitte Warner’s classes at Westminster Choir College, and Jos Wuytack’s courses on Long Island added greatly to my store of knowledge and ability. But at this point I still lacked some music basics which O-S teachers usually get in an undergraduate music degree program. I had only a B.A. and M.A, in Math to my credit! During the 70’s I not only acquired my third level Orff certification at Memphis, but I filled in the gaps by taking college music courses leading eventually to a N.J. teaching certificate.
O-S took on still more meaning for me when I enrolled at Rutgers University in 1976 in a program called “Creative Arts in Education”. This led to a degree, Specialist in Education, in 1981. It required qualifying exams, and I proudly passed, with Tossi Aaron on my committee.
Now 17 years later, O-S permeates my life. I continue to teach school, although part time, and also have private recorder students whom I teach with a very different slant than I did in the 60’s, (Thank you, Carol King!) I continue to teach folk dancing and now Morris dancing, (Thank you, Paul Kerlee). My recorder performing group, The Navesink Ensemble, includes audience participation with an “Orffy” feel in our concerts. The parties I give at my home, for folks unrelated to my music world, always include a jam session on my instrumentarium. And as an avid world traveler, I bring the gospel of O-S wherever I go.
Muncie, Memphis, Minneapolis,(twice), Chicago,(twice), Boston, (twice),Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh,(twice), Cleveland, Atlanta, Denver, Indianapolis, Dallas, and now Philadelphia, each of you is in my bones and heart. Hopefully I will be at future conferences, to recharge, renew, rededicate myself to one of the noblest causes there is. Thank you, Carl Orff.
Repectfully submitted,
Lori Goldschmidt, Ed.S.
Creative Arts Specialist
and AOSA charter member