CAPE ELIZABETH — In sixth grade, Clara Kerkam was learning how to play the flute. Outside of school, she had weekly sessions on Zoom with an older student who played the same instrument.

“It was really awesome to hear where I would be in a few years, and it really inspired me to stick with the flute,” Kerkam said.

Kerkam was one of the first students to benefit from Maine Music Mentors, a program that pairs sixth graders who are new to band with high schoolers who conduct free informal lessons. When she arrived at Cape Elizabeth High School this year, Kerkam immediately signed up to be a mentor herself.

Sage Evans, now a freshman at Dartmouth College, founded Maine Music Mentors while she was in high school when she heard about a national dip in band enrollment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Phoebe Evans, her younger sister and a junior at Cape Elizabeth this year, has continued and expanded the program.

Over the years, more than 170 students have been involved as mentors or mentees in Cape Elizabeth, York and Gorham.

“It’s really important to reach as many band programs in Maine as possible,” Phoebe Evans, 16, said. “It’s really lovely doing it in my own community, but Cape also has one of the biggest band programs in the state. I’ll be talking to musicians from other counties and towns, and not a lot of people are as interested, and there will be smaller bands. I really want to help grow that.”

‘YOU COULDN’T PLAY TOGETHER’

The sisters both started playing the flute in fifth grade and eventually started taking lessons outside of school as well (Their oldest sister, Zoe Evans, also played the instrument. “My mom actually had us all take flute because it’s the smallest,” Phoebe Evans said with a laugh).

“I definitely loved learning more about the tone of the instrument and just producing the most beautiful sound I could,” Phoebe Evans said.

Cape Elizabeth has a robust music program. At the middle school, 60% of students participate in band. Caitlin Ramsey, one of two band directors there, said 270 middle schoolers are involved this year.

“It is quite high,” Ramsey said of their enrollment. “Quite a bit higher than the national average.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Sage Evans found playing the flute to be grounding.

“It was really great for my mental health at the time,” she said. “It was something I could go do whenever I was feeling isolated.”

But Ramsey said many students across the country stopped participating in band and orchestra programs altogether in 2020 and 2021. One study in Michigan, for example, found that the decline in instrumental education ranged from 5% for high school seniors to more than 20% in middle school grades.

While enrollment in Cape Elizabeth didn’t suffer as much as in some other places, Ramsey said it was a challenging time for music education.

“Being a student on Zoom was not a great experience for any subject, but it was really hard in music,” Ramsey said. “You couldn’t play together.”

MAKING A CONNECTION

Sage Evans thought about the role music played in her own life.

“I wanted to start a program that could help inspire interest in music and hopefully keep some of these programs up and running,” she said.

Maine Music Mentors began as a pilot program for flutists in spring 2022 and became an official school club for all instruments that fall.

Both girls have played in the Portland Youth Wind Ensemble, and Maine Music Mentors grew when their peers from that group signed on as mentors for middle schoolers in Gorham and York.

The students meet one-on-one on Zoom six times during the semester for about 30 minutes. They don’t follow a formal lesson plan. Instead, mentors share tips with the younger students based on their needs and interests.

This fall, the sixth graders who were the first mentees entered high school. Phoebe Evans arranged 18 pairs for the semester across all three towns.

“We actually had a record number of mentors join,” she said.

Kerkam, 14, found teaching on Zoom to be even harder than she realized. Still, she enjoyed hearing her mentee improve over the weeks. The younger student was having trouble sight reading, so Kerkam found a game to help her mentee remember the notes.

“I learned a lot from my mentor,” Kerkam said. “This year, I wanted to be that person that little kids can look up to.”

EXPANDING ACCESS

In Cape Elizabeth, students often start band in fifth grade. When they enter sixth grade, the music gets a little more challenging, which can be overwhelming. Ramsey said Maine Music Mentors can help those students build confidence at a time when they might quit.

“It’s very different learning from a peer,” Ramsey said. “It’s one thing for your teacher you see every day who says the same thing over and over again to tell you to do something. It’s really impactful when there’s someone that you see in the hallways or on the soccer field, and they play the flute too.”

Music lessons are also expensive, even when schools have instruments to loan. Participation in Maine Music Mentors is free, and the mentors are volunteers.

“We just want to help young musicians have access to lessons and just really grow into their instrument,” Phoebe said.

She’s talking to students at three more schools about starting chapters of Maine Music Mentors there. Right now, she’s thinking about how she can foster a younger student in another way — as a leader of Maine Music Mentors – so the program can continue past her own graduation.

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For more information, visit mainemusicmentors.org.