Solberg instrumental in founding school orchestra program

Jenanne Solberg started the orchestra program at Whitefish School District with just 30 violins.

Solberg, who retired last school year after serving as the orchestra director for the middle and high school, remembers contacting Charlie Abell, president of Whitefish Credit Union at the time, with an idea — she wanted every middle school student to experience playing a string instrument. She asked for a $15,000 loan and the next day he gave her a check.

“I wanted every fifth grader to have a chance to see what it was like to play the violin,” she said. “I have the picture of the kids getting the violins and they’re just beaming.”

Today, the orchestra program boasts about 80 violins, a dozen cellos and a dozen bases — and countless students who have learned to play music.

“I must have had it somewhere in my mind that it would just grow, but I took it a stair step at a time,” she said.

Solberg had previously created an orchestra program while teaching at Billings Central, but says in Whitefish it didn’t really occur to her at the time she might be creating a larger program. She simply wanted her students to experience music.

“When they’re in kindergarten through third grade they get to sing and dance, and hit things, then in fourth grade they play the recorder,” she said. “But they never get the chance to pick up a bow and I thought they needed that to have a well-rounded experience.”

Solberg began teaching in the district in Whitefish in 2002, and at the same time she was giving private lessons in piano and violin at North Valley Music School. What she found was that her young students learning the violin weren’t able to continue at the middle school and later the high school level without creating a program in the schools.

She says school administrators were supportive of the idea and before long the program was off the ground at both schools.

“I wanted every student to have a taste of each instrument and then after sixth-grade they could decide whether to keep going,” she said. “There have been tons of stories from my students of them playing music years later. My goal was never to prepare students to go to Carnegie Hall. I’m a social musician — it’s about having fun getting together and playing music.”

A lifelong musician, Solberg began taking piano lessons at age 5 when her family moved to Missoula. The school had her skip kindergarten and move straight into second grade, but she was still not challenged enough so her teacher suggested music lessons.

Solberg says she was the only member of her family to play music at the time, but soon she was being sent to the University of Montana to study piano with professor George Hummel, who would serve as her teacher through graduate school.

She studied piano performance and didn’t see herself becoming a teacher but she did teach private lessons.

Then while living in Billings, she got a call to see if she’d be willing to start an orchestra program after several students who had been playing string instruments were looking to enroll at Billings Central. She went on to recruit middle school-age students and built up the program.

Solberg’s parents have a cabin on Whitefish Lake and she’d spent summers visiting here, so when a job opening for a music teacher in Whitefish opened up she applied.

She’s played with symphonies and plays piano and organ at church. She says she enjoys playing music as part of a group.

“There’s actually a physical reward that comes with playing music,” she said. “It feels so good to hold my viola and play a tune. Much like my students playing music with others means being part of a whole.”

Solberg, who plays with the Glacier Symphony, suggested adding Camp Feastival Amadeus to the symphony’s annual festival. During the camp, students get the chance to play together and learn from professional musicians.

Even when students are first learning to play and some might cringe at the sounds coming from the violin, Solberg says she enjoys those early stages waiting for the moment when the practice all just clicks and they’re playing.

In her student orchestras, students selected section leaders rather than trying out for the positions as is typically done. The structure gave students the opportunity to take turns leading, she says.

“Nobody ever felt like they were in a bad place,” she said. “Nobody ever had to worry about their status.”

This fall, Solberg has missed being in the classroom. She reminisces about her first period high school class with about 60 students eager to see each other and talk about the events of the night before.

“They have such joy and enthusiasm even when the music is hard,” she said. “I miss starting my day with that kind of energy.”