For 30 years, Percussion Scholarship Program has changed lives via music

Ever since she could utter the word “drum,” Marcelina Suchocka, who emigrated from Poland to Chicago with her family when she was 7, had badgered her parents about the playing the instrument. When she was in third grade at Onahan Elementary School, 6634 W. Raven, her chance came.

A teacher gave her a pamphlet about percussion lessons sponsored by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association; she threw it in her backpack and ignored it. Suchocka recalls seeing her mother that night after reading it, because she knew what it meant: a way for her daughter to get the musical training that the family otherwise couldn’t afford. “For us, as recent immigrants in the United States without much money, it was like heaven-sent,” she said.

It turned out they had missed the deadline for applying to the program that year, but her mother pleaded to get the wanna-be drummer a late audition. Not only was she accepted, Suchocka, now 31, also has gone on to become one of the program’s biggest success stories, serving as principal percussion with the Sarasota (Florida) Symphony Orchestra since 2022.

“It was an amazing experience for me,” Suchocka said. “I credit them for really the rest of my career.”

That training initiative, which goes by the unassuming name of Percussion Scholarship Program, is marking its 30th anniversary this fall. Operating from the basement of Symphony Center, it has provided weekly lessons on snare drum, marimba and other percussion instruments for about 300 students across Chicago. Some of those participants like Suchocka or Cleo Goldberg, who teaches at Chicago’s Bell Elementary School, 3730 N. Oakley, have gone on to music careers. Other alumni have ventured in other directions — one, for example, an orthopedic surgeon, another a mechanical engineer — taking the life lessons and music appreciation they gained with them.

The program was founded by Patricia Dash, a member of the CSO percussion section, and Douglas Waddell, a percussionist with several area ensembles, including the Chicago Lyric Opera Orchestra and Music of the Baroque. The two met at the CSO, when Waddell was serving as a substitute; they have been married for 31 years.

“I’m kind of surprised it has been 30 years,” Dash said with a laugh. “I think we’ve both learned a lot from the experience. I’m not surprised at the accomplishments of the kids. I always thought there was a huge amount of talent untapped, and I still believe that. But it’s hard work. Learning an instrument is a long-term project.”

Dash got the idea for the training initiative when she was performing with small groups of CSO musicians in local schools in the 1990s. She noticed that a few students would sometimes play the drums as they were presenting the flag. A portion showed an aptitude for the instrument, but many Chicago elementary schools do not have band or orchestra programs. “Sometimes these teachers would approach us and ask, ‘What does the symphony do to provide lessons for young kids?’ At the time, that wasn’t part of what the orchestral association was doing," Dash said.

She was teaching then at Northwestern University. But she decided that NU could easily find someone qualified to take her place and that she would rather try to help these youngsters she had encountered. She approached Henry Fogel, the CSO’s president in from 1985 through 2003, with the idea of starting a training program under the orchestra’s auspices, and he agreed.

At first, the students just had practice drum pads and sticks. But now they play with actual instruments, such as snare drums and marimbas, which are lent to them for at-home practice, as well as array of on-site percussion instruments. All the costs of the program are covered by the CSO through its educational arm, the Negaunee Music Institute.

Dash and Waddell have created the program’s curriculum completely on their own, assembling a giant binder for each year, including sections from multiple instrument books. The approach is somewhat similar to Venezuela’s famed El Sistema or the System, which has involved hundreds of thousands of student musicians, including its famous alumnus, Gustavo Dudamel, who will take over as music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026. But as far as Dash knows, no other American orchestra offers a program like the CSO’s Percussion Scholarship Program.

Students typically apply when they are in third grade and begin the following year. The process includes a simple audition that allows Dash and Waddell to assess the prospects’ aptitude for percussion. Typically, just one in six applicants is accepted. Only Chicago residents are eligible. Because the students have to come to Symphony Center every Saturday, traveling from the suburbs can be a problem. In addition, most suburban elementary schools have band or orchestra programs. “We wanted to target kids who might not otherwise have an opportunity,” Dash said.

Some years, the program has had as many as 22 participants, but both of the leaders say that is too many. “I think a good number is around 16,” Waddell said. This season, they have 11 beginners, seven second- and third-year participants and three high schoolers — 21 in all. The current gap between participants early in the cycle and those in high school is a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the program had to shut down and couldn’t accept new students.        

The beginners take a weekly class each Saturday for the first year, then transfer to individual lessons for the remainder of the program. They begin on snare drum and add marimba, and they are expected to practice 45 minutes a day during the week on each instrument. “We have week-to-week expectations,” Waddell said. “This is the amount of stuff that has to be done each week.”

There is no summer break. Early on, he and Dash discovered that such an interruption meant that the students would forget much of what they had learned when they took up their instruments again in the fall.

In addition, the participants perform in two annual concerts that are preceded by six weeks of intense Sunday rehearsals, as well as “family days,” recitals in which each student usually plays two solos. Dash and Waddell have had special arrangements created for their student percussion ensembles by Cliff Colnot, a composer and arranger with many ties to the CSO, who died in 2024, and Gary Fry, another composer and arranger, who has been involved with the orchestra’s holiday concerts for about 20 years.

“Since our group is so unusual,” Waddell said, “you can’t just go to any music store and buy arrangements for 18 kids at various levels. So we just created our own repertoire.” In addition to classical works, the arrangers have ventured into other realms as well. Colnot, for example, created a percussion-ensemble version of excerpts from “West Side Story,” and Fry made an arrangement of “Riverdance” that has proved especially popular with the students. In addition to its own performances, the group has appeared at some of the CSO’s holiday concerts; individuals and ensembles from the program have been featured on the National Pubic Radio program “From the Top.”

When the participants finish eighth grade, Dash and Waddell decide which ones can progress to the program’s high-school portion, based largely on the commitment that they have displayed to that point. While not all of these advanced students pursue a music career, the training they receive potentially prepares them for top music schools such as the San Francisco Conservatory or the Juilliard School in New York.

Another alumnus of the percussion program is Josh Jones, 33, who serves as principal percussion of the Grant Park Orchestra, performs with the nationally touring Sphinx Virtuosi and substitutes with the CSO and other ensembles in the Chicago region. When he was in third grade, his band teacher at the Beasley Academic Center, 5255 S. State, recommended that he apply for the program. One of the requirements for applicants was attending a performance by the percussion program students. “My mom and I went to the concert, and we were blown away by everything going on,” he said.

Waddell later helped Jones craft a plan for his musical future that included obtaining a degree and then getting a fellowship with a major orchestra, and that is exactly what he did. After graduating from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, he earned his bachelor’s degree at DePaul University and served as an orchestral fellow with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for two years. That experience gained him positions as principal percussion with the Calgary (Alberta) Philharmonic Orchestra and Kansas City (Missouri) Symphony before he returned to Chicago.

A month after securing his job in Calgary in 2017, he was diagnosed with cancer, and the health care he received as part of his new job was crucial. “I usually tell Doug and Patsy that the program saved my life,” Jones said. “I really appreciate them for everything they did for me.” Jones is now in his sixth year of remission.

Suchocka knows the sacrifices that Dash and Waddell have made to sustain the Percussion Scholarship Program for three decades, and she is enormously grateful. “I don’t even want to calculate how many years of their lives [they gave up] — all these weekends that they could be relaxing on a beach or spending time with family and friends. They have dedicated decades of their lives to these kids. They just have totally transformed so many lives.”