Phil Tinge, violin instructor, plays the instrument with a group of Sister Thea Bowman Catholic School students during the spring concert at the East St. Louis school May 4. Tinge, the Concert Master and first chair in violin for the Belleville Philharmonic Orchestra, has been working with students at Sr. Thea Bowman for 20 years (Liz Quirin photo).

“May the Strings be with you.”

That was the message on a T-shirt worn by the violin instructor May 4 at Sister Thea Bowman Catholic School in East St. Louis as students and faculty tuned up their violins.

All students and teachers performed at the annual spring concert as a tribute to Sister Thea Bowman, FSPA, through music and dance.

Violin instructor Phil Tinge, who is also Concert Master and first chair in violin at the Belleville Philharmonic Orchestra, led the violinists and introduced students at the school to the violin 20 years ago at the request of then-principal Sr. Janet McCann, ASC.

“It’s a holistic” type of curriculum, Tinge said.

The school also provides students with the opportunity to learn liturgical and ballroom dancing and art along with other subjects in their curriculum.

Sr. Janet had invited Tinge to bring the program to the St. Louis school where she was principal after participating in a series of workshops, highlighting the benefits of education through music.

Katherine Damkohler worked with the Juilliard School in New York and other entities to bring the program to a school there.

The north St. Louis school where Sr. Janet was principal had a similar background and makeup of students to that of Damkohler’s students.

When she became principal at Sr. Thea Bowman, Sr. Janet and Mary McGeathy, who continues at Sr. Thea Bowman today, went to New York where they met Damkohler again and learned more.

Sr. Janet again invited Tinge to begin the program there.

They began, using the Suzuki method with kindergarten through fifth grade, Sr. Janet said, and then added classes each year when grants and individuals donated funding.

The Adorers of the Blood of Christ were among the entities funding the program.

“The Suzuki method is a mid-20th Century music curriculum teaching philosophy created by Japanese violinist and pedagogue Shinichi Suzuki,” according to Wikipedia.

Teachers learn to play along with their students. So much “learning” goes on in the school. “The teachers take classes with the students, and they see grown ups as life-long learners,” Sr. Janet said.

And it’s not easy, Sr. Janet and both students who were questioned about the program attested.

Student Meadow Coates, 7, performed at her first spring concert this year and enjoyed the experience.

“I like the songs,” she said, but playing the violin is hard.

Graduating eighth-grader Ashanti Wilson, 14, agreed with Meadow that learning the violin was difficult but well worth the effort she has put into it the last nine years she’s spent at Sr. Thea Bowman.

At the beginning, Ashanti said “you had a cardboard box and a ruler to learn how to hold it.”

Ashanti said she was “happy to have a violin.”

Learning to play, she said, “was like a dream.”

“It seemed unreal at first, she said. “It may be hard at first, but Mr. Phil is there with you at the beginning, and at the concert, it comes out great.”

Tinge said his interest in the violin was piqued when he became “intrigued with my great grandfather’s violin” and learned to play with the Suzuki method. Beginning his study of the violin in fourth grade, Tinge has been playing more than 40 years.

Michelle Ruppel, current principal, shared her enthusiasm with parents, relatives and friends at the opening of the program this year, inviting people to share the “wonderful” story of the school with others.

With assistance from teachers and staff, the two-hour program that seemed to begin and end in the blink of an eye, went off without a misstep or sour note.

After the concert, Ruppel said she thought the program went “absolutely wonderfully well.”

In her second year as principal, Ruppel has taught at other Catholic schools in the diocese but was drawn to Sr. Thea Bowman, she said, because of the school’s music and arts programs.

It “drew me to the school (with) its holistic academic approach,” she said.

The school has a choir, too. It performs with Vera Boldin, choir director and pianist, who also provides accompaniment to the St. Augustine of Hippo Parish choir.

“We’re actively recruiting students for the next school year,” Ruppel said.

For more information about the program or enrolling at the school, please see stbcs.com or call 618-397-0316.