Walker West moves into new chapter of music education

NINA MOINI: The Walker West Music Academy recently celebrated the opening of its new space on Marshall Avenue in St. Paul. What started as a music program in the lower level of a duplex has grown into a beloved nonprofit music Center and a pillar of Saint Paul's Rondo community. Walker West provides community music education to more than 300 students a week. They hope they'll be able to offer education to more students, kids and adults alike, at this new space.

So joining me now to share more about the new home is Braxton Halsey, the executive director of Walker West. Thanks so much for your time this afternoon, Braxton.

BRAXTON HALSEY: Thanks for having me.

NINA MOINI: For starters, for folks who don't know, could you tell me a little bit about the history of Walker West Music Academy?

BRAXTON HALSEY: Yes, I'm delighted to do that. To really understand Walker West, you really need to understand its beginnings.

NINA MOINI: Hm.

BRAXTON HALSEY: In 1988, that was the beginning part of the crack cocaine an epidemic in the Twin Cities, and Rondo community was where it started. And it was a community that was full a lot of crime, drug busts, shootings, everything of that sort.

And Reverend Carl Walker and Grant West, they were like superheroes. They just kind of landed into this community and built the school there because they really wanted to get the kids off the street and have a safe haven for children to learn and grow.

And so that's really the initial start of Walker West, is having that safe haven, and then also bringing in the arts and culture in an area where it had become a desert in the arts and culture.

NINA MOINI: Hm. And all these years later now, you're moving into a new space. There had been some other moves along the way, I understand, but what do you think is going to stand out about this new space? How does it help you all grow, but also maintain the original intent?

BRAXTON HALSEY: Yes, this new space, we had a chance to really design it ourselves. I think in other spaces, we were leasing the previous space that we were in. This is our space. And so when we sat down with the architects, our first meeting, I said "This is not going to be called a building. This is not going to be called a facility."

NINA MOINI: Hm.

BRAXTON HALSEY: This is going to be called a cultural destination and community resource.

NINA MOINI: Hm.

BRAXTON HALSEY: And I spent a lot of time explaining the African-American culture to the architects. Explaining the church and explaining even the Middle Passage of how African Americans came to the United States, and just really talked about that in length.

And so when the design is put up, you look at the building, you walk in and you'll see these pillars which reflect the African-American liberation flag. You'll have green, yellow, and red. So as you walk in the entrance, you'll see that. And then everything about the space really reflects the culture.

Some of the studio stick in and out. That's the call and response of the church. The colors really show the vibrancy of African Americans. And the space is just really more than a music school, it's a community gathering space, and music is the tool.

I now call this space not only cultural destination, but I call it LLC, Learning, Listening, and Creating. And the space allows all students of all ages-- and we take all students of all ages, from infants as young as six weeks old to we have 103-year-old piano student, and we have a dementia-friendly choir which has been awarded by CNN called the Amazing Grace Chorus.

And so it's really a community-gathering space. It's intergenerational. And we did a strategic plan back in 2018, and that really helped to expand us beyond school-aged kids to really understanding that music is healing, and it's healing for everyone.

NINA MOINI: Wow, that sounds amazing. And you're going to have this 200-seat capacity performance hall and outdoor pavilion with a bandshell. I mean, this is really amazing stuff. And I'm wondering if there's reaction from the community or how people are feeling when they're coming over to visit.

BRAXTON HALSEY: Well, there's a sense of wonderment. We had the grand opening this weekend, and it was like having a community block party. People hadn't seen each other for years came by to pay respects. And everybody walked out of there with a sense of amazement and wonderment, and it really reflects what we want Walker West to be.

It's a community gathering space which has music, and which allows us to really get the community involved, and really have the community involved in really using the power of music for all of us. Because in this present moment, we need music now more than ever.

NINA MOINI: And your students, like you mentioned, they range in all ages, and if people want to come and take classes, I understand you do have scholarships available and different things available to make it more accessible to people. Tell me a little bit about the different types of music and instruments, and what types of classes people might experience there.

BRAXTON HALSEY: Well, we have 20 different instruments, and we cover different genres from classical to jazz to gospel to hip-hop and rhythm and blues. What we're really known for, even though we have an outstanding classical community, but we're always been known for our improvisational style of teaching, and that's really teaching starting with the ear.

A lot of our students really start with the ear first, and we have a saying that just as you teach a child to speak before you teach them to read and write, we want our students to speak on their instruments first and then read and write. And so we say we start with the ear, and then we stretch to the eyes. Stretch to the eyes is reading the sheet music, but we want to start with the ear because that's where you get the soul.

NINA MOINI: How did you personally come to be involved with the Center?

BRAXTON HALSEY: Well, when I first started college, I was a music major.

NINA MOINI: Mm-hmm.

BRAXTON HALSEY: And I always tell this story. When I was in the second grade, I was a D and F student.

NINA MOINI: Oh.

BRAXTON HALSEY: And they talked to my mom and they said, "You need to hold him back." And she did. But she enrolled me in piano, and I went from Ds and Fs to As in one year and graduated college on the dean's list. And so I'm a true believer, and I'm on a mission to make sure that we have music in everyone's life.

And from my standpoint, music is not a nice-to-have. It's a need-to-have, it's a must-have, and it's foundational to learning. And what has happened, especially in St. Paul, in many of the elementary and middle schools, music has been taken out.

And so we want to make sure that we can go to those schools and provide music, and we're doing that. At least four schools in the St. Paul area where we deploy our instructors to go in during the day and do music lessons for the students and meet the students where they're at.

NINA MOINI: What do you think it is about music that helped you and others excel? Do you think it's emotional? Or do you think it's more in your brain? Or what do you think?

BRAXTON HALSEY: Well, music-- it's never a sexy to talk about brain health, but music is brain health because-- and music is reading, writing, and arithmetic. Even though they say that's what they wanted to only focus on when they took music out, but music is counting. It's syncopation and counting, and that's the left frontal lobe of the brain.

Then you move to the right frontal lobe, that's the creative, that's the language. Is this andante, is it vivace, is it allegro? And then you do that for several times a week, the brain starts clicking, and for our infant programs, music is brain development and impulse control and it gets the child ready for kindergarten. And then for our seniors, music is healthy aging of the brain.

And it really-- all you need to do is come to our dementia-friendly Amazing Grace Chorus rehearsal and you'll see somebody with dementia. And 15 minutes later, they're up singing and dancing, and you can see the healing power of music right then and there in front of your face. You can see that brain health just popping in because music is the last thing that goes out of your memory.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. And so this was-- the state put up some funding, different foundations, the community. A lot of people pitched in. What is your hope for the next 35 or 40 years of the Center?

BRAXTON HALSEY: Well, now that our cultural destination and community resource is here, the building, or whatever we call it, is a means to an end. And I think now the real work happens. With this space, we want to double the size of our student base from 300 a week to 600 per week. We want to expand school partnerships from four to 10. We want to expand early childhood music programs from two to 10. We want to expand our digital music partners from two to five. We're making over $1 million in instrument replacement.

And so the next three years we're hoping to-- we've raised 13.5 million, but in the next six years, we want-- our next three years, we want to raise 6 million to really build our capacity and our mission support and our infrastructure.

NINA MOINI: Wonderful. Braxton, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing with us. Wishing you the best. Thank you.

BRAXTON HALSEY: Thank you so much.

NINA MOINI: And thank all of you for listening to Minnesota Now. Hope you'll join us again tomorrow at noon.

[MUSIC PLAYING]