From left, Mary Ann Casale, student Isabella Felter, Frontier Physical Education Teacher Adam Olson and Tas Cru give a demonstration about blues harmonica at the Blues in Schools assembly at Frontier Middle School on Thursday. (Photo by Gwen Sour)

NEW MATAMORAS — The Mid-Ohio Valley Blues, Jazz, & Folk Music Society (BJFM) presented its Blues in Schools program on Thursday to Frontier Middle School students, one of several school visits throughout the area.

Jay Phillips is the Board President of the BJFM Society and said that the group has brought Blues in Schools to the Mid-Ohio Valley region since 2015.

The group travels to schools throughout the region and presents the genre of blues music to middle-school-aged students free of charge to the school systems.

“(We) take blues educators who are on the certified list from the Blues Foundation in Memphis, bringing them up each year to visit a variety of schools,” said Phillips. “We focus primarily on middle school-aged students, they seem to be old enough so that they can get excited about and maybe they’re already involved in a music program.”

The format of the program is a 45-minute presentation that includes facts about blues and history on its origin, followed by a question and answer session. Presenting this week were Tas Cru and Mary Ann Casale, two blues musicians based out of central New York state.

Tas Cru, one of the Blues in Schools educators, shows off a three-string box guitar at the Blues in Schools program at Frontier Middle School on Thursday. (Photo by Gwen Sour)

Cru and Casale performed classic blues songs and then asked the students what they thought the blues was as a genre. Several students raised their hands and shouted out that they thought it was sad.

“You know what, it can be that,” said Cru. “Blues is music that goes from people’s hearts and people’s souls, whatever’s on their mind. It’s about things we care about, things we worry about, things that we celebrate.”

During the assembly Casale and Cru invited Frontier School’s Physical Education teacher Adam Olson and middle school student Isabella Felter to assist with a demonstration of blues-style harmonica. Cru gave a brief masterclass on how to play the harmonica, demonstrating how to hold the instrument and then how playing the notes worked, with high notes on the right side and low notes on the left. Casale and Cru led Olson and Felter through a call-and-response song.

Music educator for kindergarten through twelfth grade at Frontier Local School District Shirelle Barnett said she was happy to have the group in attendance and stated that they have 18.5% of the district enrolled in band.

“I hope that they get more exposure to a truly American form of music, more so than what we’re able to provide in class,” said Barnett.

To wrap up the Blues in Schools tour, there will be a coffee-house-style performance from Casale and Cru at the Gun Room restaurant at the Lafayette Hotel in Marietta from 8-9:30 p.m. today.

Gwen Sour can be reached at gsour@newsandsentinel.com