In Harmony: the Kaufman Center Newsletter
Annual Scholarship Luncheon
The Rivkin family has been affiliated with Lucy Moses School since 1976, when Oleg Rivkin became the first Russian student to attend the school. He was a full scholarship recipient. Today, Oleg is a successful lawyer, and his four children with wife Cheryl Obedin carry on the family’s musical tradition in their studies with their “aunt” Genya Paley. The Rivkin family was honored at Kaufman Center’s Annual Scholarship Luncheon on March 11, which raised more than $30,000 for the Lucy Moses School Scholarship Fund. The following note from Cheryl Rivkin describes why the Rivkins feel music education is essential to children’s development, and why people should support the Scholarship Fund.
When our daughter, Ariela, was four years old, her pre-K teacher asked us why she had to take piano lessons. After all, the teacher explained, Ariela was so young and she complained about practicing. To us, the question was as baffling as it would have been for Genya Paley, our piano teacher, to ask us why we bother to send our children to school since it is so hard to learn to read. It was our belief when the children were very small— and this belief solidified as our children grew—that what they have learned at the music school is of no less value than what they have learned at their regular school. On a per-hour invested basis, in fact, there is no question that the return on music school has been incredibly high. While we never relied on the children growing up so exceptional in music that they would pursue it professionally, we have relied on music as a key tool for training our children to become—we hope—exceptional people. Through music, children learn the obvious skills of reading and appreciating music, finger and brain coordination, and playing an instrument. But our children have learned so much more too. Music has been our tool, for introducing Western culture and history, for building self-confidence, concentration, patience, discipline, and for standing and delivering—on cue, and when it counts. Music is a place to learn that talent alone is insufficient for a person who will not combine it with work. And this is a good lesson for life.
So why Lucy Moses School at Kaufman Center? What makes it so special that we schlep four children into Manhattan at least once per week, and sometimes almost every night in a week, to study music? Quite simply, the school is that good, and we are not the only family who makes the pilgrimage. The faculty is exceptional, the offerings broad, and the facility unparalleled. Most important, Lucy Moses School is a completely child-centric place which assumes that children are real people waiting to be exposed and educated.
Why raise scholarship money for other people’s children to attend Lucy Moses School? We have seen such money put to good use in our family’s 34-year association with the school. Over the last dozen years our children have had the privilege of learning and performing at Lucy Moses School with wonderful young musicians who simply could not attend the school without a scholarship. Those who receive have been everything we wish our children to be: dedicated, focused and exceptional. The school monitors progress carefully and puts donor money to careful use. —Cheryl Rivkin
