Brian Chevalier studied Classical guitar at Keene State College in Keene, NH. He has worked extensively as a performer in the northeastern and southeastern United States and as a Teaching Artist throughout the Northeast.

February 10, 2010 - The students at Loudonville Elementary School have long understood the importance of strong character. Character Education is a significant part of the curriculum in all North Colonie schools. In an interesting twist, Loudonville students are now applying music and song writing to the many character education traits they learn in the classroom.

Brian Chevalier is a musician and Teaching Artist and comes to Loudonville Elementary School from The Capitol Region Center for Arts in Education. He has trained and received on-going professional development in workshops and seminars with facilitators from The Lincoln Center Institute and other professional teaching organizations.

Since January, Chevalier has been Loudonville Elementary’s Artist in Residence, working with students in each grade level composing songs that reflect character education traits they have learned in class. This program was organized by the Loudonville PTA Cultural Arts Committee.

“The beauty of a songwriting residency is that we can make it fit many goals at the same time,” Chevalier said. “Besides having a strong English/Language Arts component, we can have the subject matter of the song cover any topic you can imagine.”

Chevalier met with Loudonville teachers to explore and plan what curricular and character education content will be communicated through their songs. The traits that the teachers wanted to emphasize were: cycles, the friendship train, teamwork, the golden rule, individuality, empathy and the power of one.

Chevalier says that teaching the process of song writing starts out simply. He takes the students through the creative process of what a song writer does. This incorporates many of the formal writing skills the students have learned already.

“We begin by brainstorming ideas, writing a rough draft, revising the draft, re-writing it again…it is a process and students really get into it,” he said.

The next step is to “Say it with music.” Chevalier uses this approach to assist students in communicating their lyrical message, using devises of music.

“One small decision at a time composes the music for any song,” he said.

One wonders though if there are any debates during these sessions among the students.

“They all have wonderful ideas. Many times it helps us better formulate where we are eventually going,” he said.

At the present date, Loudonville students have written the lyrics for their respective songs. The next step is for Chevalier to lay down the music tracks that will accompany the lyrics. After that, the students will record their songs. The process will come to a climax when the students perform their songs at a district-wide concert on March 31 at Shaker High School.