Millersville Shares “Musical Moments” with Veterans

In collaboration with the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute, Millersville University offers piano lessons to veterans at the Winter Visual and Performing Arts Center on Saturday mornings free of charge.

In an effort to reach out to the broader community, the Winter and Ware centers teamed up to bring Yamaha’s “Musical Moments” program to Millersville University. According to the Yamaha Music and Wellness Institute website, the program was created to “integrate creative musical expression with proven bio-psycho-social strategies” and help veterans who may be wounded physically or emotionally to tap into their personal creativity.

“All too often there are certain segments of the population that, for one reason or another, are underserved by the arts despite the fact that they would both benefit greatly from arts experiences and would enrich the arts by their active involvement,” said Barry Kornhauser, family arts collaborative manager of the Ware Center and Winter Center.

Four Millersville students, team leader Jamie Duca, Sharon Ho, Sarah Newswanger and Lillian Noble, received training from Yamaha’s institute. Class size will be limited to six. The small class size guarantees personal attention to each and every veteran enrolled.

“This program is a chance to bless someone else with the gift of music, which is something that has always been important to me,” said Newswanger, a junior majoring in music.

“It really means a lot to be giving back to such a hard-working and friendly group of people,” said Duca, a senior majoring in music education.

Marge Mower, a veteran who has been enrolled in the “Musical Moments” classes since its inception last semester, reached out to Kornhauser to offer a personal “thank you” for bringing the classes to Millersville.

“Those of us who are participating are having a great experience,” said Mower. “It has been wonderful, and we are searching for more veterans…who may be able to be involved in this opportunity.”

Home to the largest Yamaha piano lab of any college in the country, the Winter Center was deemed a perfect place to host a program like “Musical Moments.”

“It seemed a shame not to take avail of this state-of-the-art facility for the proposed music program,” said Kornhauser.

The classes are offered free of charge through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Association of Performing Arts Presenters/MetLife Foundation.

For more information or to enroll in the free lessons, contact Barry Kornhauser at Barry.Kornhauser@millersville.edu or 717-871-7812.