Local husband and wife music teacher team to retire in June
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By CARRIE DEBRONEKitchener Citizen
“You know it’s time to retire when one of your former students becomes your principal,” laughed Kirby Julian, Head of the Music Department at Grand River Collegiate Institute.
Kirby and his wife, Barb Julian, who currently teaches at Stanley Park Senior Public School, have been providing students with the opportunity to learn, play and appreciate music for a combined 59 teaching years.
They will both retire in June.
Current Grand River High School Principal Deborah Tyrrell was one of Kirby Julian’s former music students. Ironically, her father, Desmond Tyrrell, who was the former Coordinator of Music for the Waterloo County Board of Education, hired Julian in 1981, giving him his first job with the public school board.
Kirby taught at Stanley Park, Crestview and Grand River for three years before he was hired full time at Grand River High School, where he has taught for 27 years (taking only one year off in 1995-96 when he and Barb took their three children to Haiti to teach music for six months and spend some time touring France).
“Both Kirby and Barb are very passionate about arts education,” said Tyrrell.
“We sometimes forget about how much time is involved to run a music program like we have here. He’s truly dedicated. I don’t see that he’s slowed down any since I had him in the 1980s. It’s amazing. He’s definitely going to be missed,” she said.
Ray Teed served as principal at Grand River for more than 11 years.
“They both have such a passion for music and a strong commitment to their students,” Teed said.
“They are tireless workers. Every school needs a very strong extra curricular program in order to have a strong music program and they provided that. It involved a lot of long hours for them and they were very dedicated,” he said.
The couple both has the same teaching philosophy.
“We believe that if we can allow students to become strong independent learners then you can set them free and see what they can do themselves,” Barb said.
“We’ve never encouraged them to make a career out of music (although some of their students have become professional musicians) because that’s a hard path, but we’ve always encouraged them to develop a love of music,” Kirby said.
“As a teacher you try to inspire students, but I’ve found music students who are involved in extracurricular groups are the ones that have got heart. You can’t make a student enthusiastic about something but these kids are already enthusiastic. They know the joy of music.”
Both teachers have lived though many changes to the school system over the years – the elimination of grade 13, cutting the grade 6 strings program, cutting music specialists in schools and dropping the number of curriculum options needed to graduate.
Both worry about the future of music in public schools.
“We’re hoping that music programs will always continue to thrive in the schools. Waterloo Region has always been a leader in music,” he said, adding that it is challenging to maintain a high level of integrity in the programs with so few supports.
Part of the Julian’s secret to making the music programs at both local schools successful has been the popular Music Camp, which the couple has run together for many years.
For one weekend every fall, the grade 8 Stanley Park students retreat with the high school music students, usually to Bellwood Lodge and Camp outside of Fergus, to play music, cook and generally enjoy each other’s company. When the grade 8 students then get to high school the next year, they already know some of the older kids. It makes the transition to high school and it’s music program easier and provides a great leadership opportunity for the older students.
Kirby has many fond memories of his time at Grand River including playing in 1986 at an event to raise money for a heart and lung transplant for Cam Evans, a student at the school.
Evans was one of the first people in Canada to undergo this risky operation, which extended his life a few years.
“Cam was the manager of the football team, a job he took because of his health restrictions,” Kirby said, noting that the Cam Evans award for team management is still given out annually at the high school.
Kirby also loved playing the violin in a band with other teachers called ‘Cousin Clyde and the Pea Pickers.’ They would get together just to play and have fun usually performing bluegrass tunes and silly folk songs.
Another highlight of his time at GRCI was his trip to Kenya to build a school.
He said he will greatly miss the many extracurricular musical groups he has worked with over the years.
In order for students to have the experience of playing music they are most interested in, he has always attempted to provide his music students with the widest possible variety of musical ensembles, and opportunities to perform.
The sheer number of groups he provided as Head of the Music Department is a testament to his dedication.
Each year, Grand River High School has offered Junior and Senior Strings, symphony orchestra, concert band, junior and senior jazz bands, concert choir and jazz choir as well as many other small ensembles such as brass or sax quartets or Blues groups. The various ensembles also perform regularly at the Kiwanis Festival, the high school’s Spring and Fall Concerts, seasonal events at the school and in the community.
“Both Barb and Kirby Julian opened up so many opportunities for our kids and provided a really good experience by allowing them to play at other venues like the Centre in the Square, at weddings and at nursing homes,” said Mary Casey, whose three children participated in Grand River’s music program.
Barb Julian began her teaching career in 1980, teaching a string instrument class at a school in Ingersoll. She had to audition to win the position.
“I think they hired me because I was the only one who knew anything about bass,” said Barb, whose music specialty is bass string instruments.
She later taught strings to grade six students in about ten schools in Waterloo Region, many of them in the Stanley Park area. Many of her string classes were included in the enrichment programs offered at elementary schools and because she travelled to different schools she had no permanent classroom.
“I used any spare space they had to teach in. A couple of times I was in change rooms or a room behind the stage, in the library or at a local church. I think one time I even taught in a closet,” she joked.
Teaching music at Stanley Park, Barb has worked to provide a solid foundation of fundamentals for her students – something that many of them carry forward as they graduate from the senior public school then continue at high school.
This continuum of musical education in string instruments is rare in this region and Stanley Park School is one of the last senior public schools in Waterloo region to offer string orchestra.
Stanley Park Principal Rob MacQueen said recognition of both Barb and Kirby Julian is “well deserved,”
Barb has done an incredible amount of work with the arts program here at Stanley Park. She truly wants kids to succeed. That really showed at our recent Arts Nights where the students gave her flowers and were very appreciative and complimentary of her work,” MacQueen said.
“Both she and Kirby have given a lot of their personal time and they work well as a team to join both schools and allow the students to continue building their musical skills into high school.”
Fellow teacher Linda Brandt, who has taught at Stanley Park School for seven years, credits Barb for keeping the orchestra alive at the school.
“It’s tough to run a music strings program, but the kids here are prepared to transfer into high school because of Barb’s program. She’s the goddess of history, geography and especially of music. She’s passionate about that,” Brandt said.
“Barb just does everything here. We will all miss her very, very much,” Brandt said, adding that over the years Barb has given her time to run the school’s grade 7 and 8 string orchestras, the grade 7 and 8 choirs, fiddle groups, and smaller vocal ensembles such as triple trios. She has also made sure her students were given the opportunity to perform O Canada at a Kitchener Rangers’ game every year.
“The thing I’ll miss the most is teaching the string orchestras. The kids in the extra curricular strings programs really want to be there. It’s been a pure joy to work with them and being able to work with kids that want to do what you do – well, it’s priceless,” she said.
The Julians plan to continue to play with the Stratford Symphony where they have been members for six years.
“We’re going to have to discover how to relax and enjoy down time,” Barb said. But that may not be possible for a while. The couples has three children and have recently become grandparents to twin girls. They already have a trip planned to enjoy the fall colours.
Barb still plans to supply teach and Kirby….well, you may just see him buzzing around town from one music event to the next atop his new Silver Wing Honda Scooter.
“If we’ve done nothing else, we hope we’ve raised the visibility of the music programs in local schools,” Barb said.
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The music ‘Finale’ year-end evening show at Grand River High School is May 24, followed by Jazz and Spaghetti night on June 5.
Members of Stanley Park School’s grade 8 choir will perform the song Barb Julian wrote to commemorate last year’s decision to keep Stanley Park School open, titled ‘Step Into the Fall’, at this year’s Stanley Park grade 8 graduation on Tuesday, June 26 at Bingeman Park.