The Maestro Of East Harlem

By Nadya Labi/New York City

Time is running out. The annual concert is tomorrow, and Roberta Guaspari-Tzavaras is whipping herself and her second- and third-grade violinists through a frenzied rehearsal. "When I bow, you bow!" she barks. "I don't want to tell you to watch me!"

The 24 little musicians are gathered in the basement of River East elementary school in one of New York's tougher neighborhoods: East Harlem. At the back of the room is a sign admonishing them to PRACTICE MORE; in front is this dervish of a drill instructor, issuing staccato directives from beneath a cloud of frizzy, dark hair that seems charged by her kinetic energy. "Don't anyone make a sound. Fix your feet and your bow right away. O.K., eyes on me. No fooling around."

The class stands at attention, violins tucked under crooked arms and bows dangling from right index fingers. Roberta, as her students call her, holds their gaze for a moment before abruptly extending the violin out and then up to her chin in a command gesture. The kids obey. "O.K., here we go!"

She plays a rousing introduction, and they're off into a fast, furious rendition of Suzuki's Allegro. Roberta sways and bobs, eyeing the students over her chin rest while stamping her foot to keep the beat. "Down bow!" Stomp. "Watch my bow!"

Today, as always, their eyes are on Roberta. She has earned their attention, this 51-year-old Italian American who ventured into Harlem in 1980, bringing along two sons and 50 violins. The tiny instruments were a settlement of sorts--bought for $5,000 to teach kids in Greece, where she was stationed as a military wife, and kept when her marriage ended and she returned to the U.S. The daughter of a factory worker, she had taken up violin in fourth grade at her public school. "It should be an inalienable right for every child to have music education," she insists. To remedy what Jefferson overlooked, she moved to East 118th Street and brought the sound of strings to three public schools.

"They wrote my name on a piece of paper, put it in a big bucket and picked me out of it," explains Chantaneice Kitt, 8, who has been in the violin program for two years. The lottery is Roberta's way of asserting that music is for all children, not just the gifted or privileged. Her students--and her vocal cords--sometimes pay the price for her passion. "She gets on your case and stuff," says Toussaint Stackhouse, 9, "but I like her the way she is. When we need help, she helps us."

Adiza Sanchez-Rahim, 12, knew nothing about violin when Roberta visited her first-grade class six years ago. Adiza is at an awkward age, but when she picks up the violin, she assumes a defiant grace. After all, she has taken lessons at Juilliard, performed in Switzerland and played for Oprah Winfrey. Says Adiza: "I'd be totally different without violin."

Her fate and that of her fellow musicians hung in the balance in 1991, when the board of education cut funding for arts and music instruction, and Roberta lost her job. In response, she founded the nonprofit Opus 118 Music Center and recruited 14 of the world's top violinists, among them Itzhak Perlman and Isaac Stern, to play Bach's Double Concerto with her and her students on the stage of Carnegie Hall. Together, they raised more than $300,000 to keep violins in the schools of Harlem. The story inspired an Oscar-winning documentary and The Music of My Heart, a Miramax film starring Meryl Streep, to be released in October. "When I first observed Roberta in class, I thought she was very hard on her kids," recalls Streep. "But her rationale was that it's a way of according respect to the discipline."

On a recent Thursday evening, Roberta got her yearly opportunity to demand respect for her students. About 175 empty violin cases were stacked against the walls of the gym at Central Park East I elementary school, and their young owners, ages 5 and up, formed neat rows on the basketball court. They shifted nervously, awaiting their cue to enter the packed auditorium. "When you get onstage, fix your feet and your bows!" yelled Roberta. "Who do you watch? Your mother?"

"No!"

"Your father?"

"No!"

They knew the answer. They followed Roberta onstage, and the crowd went wild.