THE KIDS WITH THE INSTRUMENT CASES
Detroit's musical legacy didn't begin when the world discovered its artists. It began much earlier—in classrooms, rehearsal rooms and neighborhoods where young people had the chance to learn. Detroit Harmony is working on what comes next.
WHEN MUSIC WAS PART OF GROWING UP IN DETROIT
Damien Crutcher remembers when seeing kids walking home from school carrying instrument cases was nothing unusual in Detroit. His own instrument was often among them.
Crutcher began playing trumpet in Detroit Public Schools and later switched to French horn. At Cass Technical High School, music began opening doors. He studied privately with Detroit Symphony Orchestra horn player Bryan Kennedy, attended Interlochen, went on to Michigan State University and eventually earned a graduate degree in conducting at the University of Michigan.
It's easy to look at a path like that backward and see one logical step after another. From the beginning, it rarely works that way.
Someone teaches the first lesson. A young musician needs somewhere to play. A teacher sees potential and raises the expectation. An opportunity appears, and the student has done enough work to be ready for it.
Detroit's famous musical history is filled with stories that began in similarly ordinary ways.
Those experiences stayed with Crutcher as his career moved from performing and conducting into education and arts leadership. Today he is Director of Detroit Harmony, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra initiative launched in 2020 to expand access to music education for Detroit's young people.
The instrument is one piece of a much larger puzzle.
WHAT HAPPENS AFTER THE INSTRUMENT?
Instrument drives have given Detroit Harmony some of its greatest public visibility. Trumpets, violins, clarinets and other instruments left unused in closets and basements are collected, repaired and returned to use.
In 2023, Crutcher posted online that Detroit Harmony had 40 three-quarter-size violins available. Requests came quickly from Detroit and then far beyond it. Soon there was a waiting list.
For the student who receives one, however, a violin without instruction isn't much of a music education.
Detroit Harmony works to connect students with what comes next. Professional teaching artists have gone directly into schools through mobile lessons. Children have opportunities to try different instruments before choosing one. Families can get help finding nearby programs.
Working with Data Driven Detroit, the initiative has also mapped music resources across the city so families can more easily find what's available in their neighborhoods.
Even instrument repair matters. Detroit Harmony has supported training in the field, helping keep donated instruments playable while introducing another potential career in Detroit's music economy.
A child getting a trumpet is a good beginning. Whether that child has a teacher, somewhere to play and a reason to keep practicing determines what can happen afterward.
HOW A MUSIC CITY STAYS A MUSIC CITY
Detroit has an unusual relationship with its musical history.
People travel here because of it. They tour Motown. They come looking for jazz, gospel and techno landmarks. They know the artists and records that carried Detroit's sound far beyond Michigan.
But none of those musicians arrived fully formed.
Before the recordings and tours were school bands, church musicians, neighborhood teachers, private lessons, rehearsal spaces and working professionals passing along what they knew.
Those aren't supporting details in Detroit's musical history. They're part of how the history happened.
Detroit Harmony works in that territory now, relying on schools, arts organizations, educators, musicians and institutions contributing different resources rather than expecting one organization to provide everything.
Crutcher also serves as CEO and co-founder of Crescendo Detroit. Crescendo works intensively with young people through its after-school and summer programs; Detroit Harmony reaches across a wider network of schools and community organizations.
Their work is different, but both face the same practical question: once a young person becomes interested in music, what opportunities are available to help that interest grow?
ANOTHER CONNECTION BEHIND THIS SHOW
Detroit Harmony has also played a practical role behind the October 27 concert.
The organization made its Cass Avenue space available for two separate sessions. Morris Hayes rehearsed there with the Detroit-based musicians involved in the production. Later, Crescendo's young performers used the space for a dance and movement workshop with Teacher/Choreographea Chelsea Davis as they prepared their Opening Act at the Bonstelle.
We're grateful to Detroit Harmony for opening the room to both.
THE NEXT DETROIT MUSIC STORY
There is a reason Crutcher still remembers those kids heading home with instrument cases.
No one passing them on the sidewalk knew what would become of all that practicing.
Most children who learn an instrument won't become famous musicians, nor do they need to. Some will become teachers, performers or producers. Some may find careers in engineering, instrument repair or another part of the music business. Others will do something entirely different and still carry music with them.
And somewhere among all those children may be an artist Detroit hasn't heard from yet.
That's what makes this a musical legacy story.
Detroit's legacy isn't only the music we've inherited. It includes whether the city continues to give young people places to begin, people to learn from and opportunities to find out how far they want to go.
Detroit Harmony can't know which instrument, lesson, teacher or experience will matter most to which child.
Neither could the people who once helped a young French horn player from Detroit find his next opportunity.
They simply made sure there was one.
DETROIT HARMONY
An initiative of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra
Director: Damien Crutcher
Detroit Symphony OrchestraMax M. & Marjorie S. Fisher Music Center3711 Woodward AvenueDetroit, MI 48201
Email: dcrutcher@dso.org
Learn more about Detroit Harmony through the Detroit Symphony Orchestra website.
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