Kitchens starting music program for older adults
The music hasn’t skipped a beat for the Rev. Mary Kitchen and her husband, Allen, after her retirement from the pulpit last year.
The former pastor of the yoked churches of East Butler Presbyterian and North Butler Presbyterian and their music director are starting a new group to teach older people to play a musical instrument.
The Kitchens are starting a Butler chapter of New Horizons Music International Music Association, whose programs provide entry points to music-making for adults. This includes people with no musical experience at all and also people who were active in school music programs but have been inactive for a long period.
Mary Kitchen said the group would meet at 2 p.m. Thursdays, beginning Sept. 29, at Trinity Presbyterian Church, 107 Staley Ave.
“We’re starting a chapter,” said Kitchen. “They’re letting us use their downstairs and there is parking. It’s for people 50 and plus, but we won’t turn anybody away.”
“My husband and I play stringed instruments, so we will be teaching the guitar, mandolin, violin, viola, bass and ukelele. That’s what we are starting with. We’ll have those instruments at the meeting, or people can bring their own,” said Kitchen.
Kitchen said many older adults would either like to learn an instrument or take up an instrument again, perhaps after playing one in high school or college.
The first New Horizons program at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, N.Y., serves the senior population.
Kitchen said the two-hour weekly meeting will first concentrate on learning a song, and then, “we’ll all play together in a jam, joyfully playing the song together.”
“We want to help people to make new friends and have fun,” she said. “It won’t be tedious. We’ll be starting at the very beginning. And we have a really easy songbook.”
Eventually, she said, she hopes the group will become good enough to play at churches and other public venues as the Butler Folk and Gospel Band.
Kitchen, herself, said she discovered how much fun it was to start a new instrument when — after playing the guitar since she was a teen — she started learning the violin in her 50s.
Today Kitchen plays the guitar, violin and viola. Allen Kitchen plays the piano, organ, clarinet, mandolin, bass, guitar and recorder.
Although the Kitchens have retired, they are still hosting monthly bluegrass jams at 7 p.m. the first Sunday of the month at the East Butler church.
Kitchen said the session of the Presbyterian Church (USA) has allowed the Kitchens to continue their jams at the East Butler church after she ended her ministry.
She also continued her musical interests by taking classes in musical therapy at Slippery Rock University and playing in the SRU orchestra. It was at the university where she learned about the New Horizons program.
Kitchen invites people to call her for information at 412-266-0930.
