Article written by Gordon Hayward, Brattleboro Reformer
Lisa (Patno) Bianconi was born in Rutland in 1963. In 1981 she graduated from high school there, having been deeply engaged in music, band choir, and debate and athletics. Four years later she earned a Bachelor’s degree in music education from Norte Dame College in Manchester, N.H., and in 1989 she earned a Master of Education from Keene State College. At 21 years old, Lisa looked for work in music education and within two weeks or so accepted the job as the music director at Kurn Hattin Homes for Children in Westminster. She’s still teaching with passion there after 39 years.
Some of us take years, decades, to figure out who we are, what we’re good at, what we want to do. Not Lisa. She knew right off: music education. And why?
She loves kids in the elementary and middle school grades, in large part because “they can be so open, so receptive, so ready to try this or try that. I am successful at engaging kids of this age. After all, I brought up five kids: Kristopher is now 34 and an emergency physician on Long Island, New York; Katheryn, also 34, is an immigration attorney in Cleveland, Ohio; Julia, 31, is a math specialist living here in Vermont; Brendan, 31, is a digital marketing director in Vermont (all four are married) and Sofia,16, is a senior at Vermont Academy and has been accepted at Amherst. She wants to be a pediatric oncologist.”
Lisa married Jeffrey Bianconi from Connecticut who also knows how to bring up children, how to look after others. He has worked in many hospitals across New England as an emergency physician as well as two years part-time in the same capacity for Indian Health Services in Arizona and New Mexico. This couple knows how to look after others, and themselves.
And clearly, here is a mother and a woman who knows how to encourage children. So when she signed up to work at The Kurn Hattin Homes for Children 39 years ago, she quickly found she was right where she belonged. She lived and lives in nearby Rockingham. She could teach music – her area of expertise – to kids within the age range she loved.
I interviewed Lisa mid-April after all 30 students at Kurn Hattin Homes this year had performed the one-hour Family Day Concert. It was held in a magnificent 200 seat purpose-built auditorium with up-to-date lighting and sound, a classroom complex attached along with 10 music practice rooms, every instrument any band would need, offices… This entire magnificent facility, The Mayo Center, was donated to Kurn Hattin Homes in honor of the major donors to KHH along with supporters who wanted Lisa’s music program to flourish. (The view from the hillside site is spectacular with a view to the east over Westminster Town, the Connecticut River Valley and the New Hampshire Hills in the distance.)
Just as you walk into the auditorium, there is a banner that reads, “Kurn Hattin transforms the lives of children and their families forever.” On the walls of the auditorium are six 18- by 3-foot banners that declare the five key words that explain the school’s goals: Perseverance, Nurturance, Hope, Compassion, Sense of Worth.
The Family Day program was arranged by Bianconi. All 30 students who attend Kurn Hattin this year were engaged: as band members; as soloists with instruments or singing to soloists or the orchestra; in ensembles; as mixed boy and girl groups or all-girls or all-boys. Even the executive director, Steve Harrison, arrived back just in the nick of time from a business trip to accompany a boy singing “Lean on Me.” Other songs sung by a variety of singers: “Bridge Over Troubled Waters,” “Shoofly, Don’t Bother Me,” or “Amazing Grace.” And, all girls were dressed in floor-length dresses or gowns, all boys wore white shirts and ties, black vests, black slacks and tie shoes. This was a class act.
Lisa told me, “Boys and girls in grades 1-8 arrive here somewhat deflated. They don’t have a sense of belonging and are dealing with serious personal problems. KHH is set up to change these kids’ lives. They leave here after however many years ready to excel, become part of a community, to become positive, confident, proud, kind, engaged people in new ways with family and friends.”
And how does music help Lisa teach all this? “On one level, when you play music you play with others for others; the secret sauce is belonging. We give and give and give, and with humility and grace, not stardom, as the goal.
“Last Valentines Day, I took 16 of our kids to three venues to perform. Two were for patients and families in the main foyer at The Dartmouth Hitchcock Hospital as well as at The Norris Cotton Cancer Center at the same hospital. But the most moving was performing at Cedarcrest, a facility for non-verbal children in New Hampshire. Those kids couldn’t speak, but to see them swaying and rocking and smiling and engaged listening to our music was so beautiful. What our kids were giving they were getting back. They see they now have gifts to share with others.
“But we do big-time stuff too. Over the years we’ve sung on The White House lawn and at Lincoln Center. We took the kids on the Star-Spangled Banner tour too. We played at baseball stadiums before games including Baltimore and several venues in Philadelphia. We sang the Star-Spangled Banner before two Red Sox games. In 2014, CBS News came here to interview me as I was one of five out of 43,000 nominees to be nominated for the first Emmy for excellence in music education. It’s been quite a run for me and the students here!
“In singing or playing an instrument or both, these kids reach out to others. We want them to experience the whole idea of giving back, to share their gifts with others.”
After the show this writer attended in Westminster, I joined a reception for the parents and audience and spoke to a mother of two students. Amanda’s eldest has been a KHH for 3 years, the younger for a year. I asked her about the music program: “It has been amazing. My boys were shy, lacking confidence. They’re now so much more confident, and I know their involvement with music has helped them with their reading to boot.”
I also ran into Samirah Evans, a superb jazz singer originally from New Orleans, now living in the Brattleboro area, who is a personal voice teacher of one of Lisa’s students. Samirah told me, “Confidence is the key in music performance – that’s half the battle – and that’s what these kids get here.”