ASTA 2025: Yumi Kendall and Joseph Conyers - Changing the World Through Music

March 22, 2025, 6:24 PM · Last week thousands of music educators, students and exhibitors gathered for the 2025 American String Teachers Association National Conference, which took place from Wednesday through Saturday at Atlanta's Hyatt Regency Hotel, alongside the Suzuki Association of the Americas' Leadership Summit.

The conference offered four days of about 250 classes and workshops on pedagogy and other topics related to music education, with jam sessions, performances, showcases and an Exhibit Hall with about 90 exhibitors. ASTA's National Orchestra Festival also took place at the same time, featuring some 37 middle and high school orchestras that traveled to Atlanta from all over the continent to perform and participate in competitions and receive ratings.

To officially begin the conference on Thursday, two highly accomplished musicians and educators who are both members of the Philadelphia Orchestra - cellist Yumi Kendall and double bassist Joseph Conyers - gave an inspiring speech that emphasized the role that teachers played in their own lives, as well as their dedication to helping students discover their own talents.

Cellist Yumi Kendall and double bassist Josephy Conyers.

Conyers' musical path began during his childhood in Savannah, Georgia, when he started piano lessons at age 5. But equally important was his experience singing in the choir at the Baptist church that his family attended.

"There were no auditions to sing in the choir," Conyers said, "all were welcome to make a joyful noise."

That joy from singing at church, combined with the formality he received in his lessons - fed his motivation and his ultimate success. "I had a sea of people who supported me," he said. It also helped that if he was practicing, he didn't have to do the yard work! After a while, music became his passion. "I chose music, and music chose me."

It also led to him becoming the first Black musician to be the section leader in a major world-class orchestra - he joined the Philadelphia Orchestra as assistant principal bass in 2010, later winning the principal position in May 2023.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is where he ran into an old friend - Kendall, who joined the orchestra's cello session in 2004. The two of them met back in school, at the Curtis Institute, and lately they have collaborated on a podcast called Tacet No More.

Kendall came from a different background - Suzuki. "I wouldn't be playing the cello without Suzuki - and my grandfather." Her grandfather was John Kendall, who helped bring the Suzuki method to the United States and build it into a successful movement in the Americas.

"Growing up, I was brainwashed into thinking that everyone played an instrument," Kendall said, adding that whenever she met a new friend when she was growing up, she asked, "What instrument do you play?" It never occurred to her that someone might not play one.

Her happiest childhood memories are from the summer on her grandparents' farm - "music was just an integral part of every day," she said, "there was a joy in making music together." Added to that joy was her mother's discipline, which made sure that she and her brother, the violinist Nick Kendall (of Time for Three fame), practiced every day.

"My identity became a 'forever student,'" she said. To that end, during the pandemic Kendall earned a master's degree in positive psychology, something that has greatly affected her outlook.

"We are all mirrors of our environment," Kendall said, "so what environment helps us to thrive?"

Conyers greatly credits his parents with being part of that environment that made him thrive, and his parents also made it clear to him that not everyone has access to that environment. He recalled a childhood memory, when his family was driving to see his grandfather. When driving through one of the more impoverished areas of Georgia, they noticed some children playing on a porch. His mother observed, "One of those kids could be a genius, and no one would ever know."

It made him think. "Someone has got to plant a seed in young people," to show them the possibilities. And then someone has to nourish those seeds - help them grow real achievements. "I'm trying to plant those seeds, wherever I go," he said.

Conyers quoted lyrics to 'Workin' on a World,' a country song by Iris DeMent - in a nutshell: the world is such a mess, that even if we try to change it, we may never see it turn around during our own lifetime. But - when you think of the doors opened and roads paved for us by the people who never saw the changes they worked so hard to create - it is our obligation, also, to work on a world that we may never see.

Kendall spoke of visiting her grandfather on his deathbed, in December 2010. He had grown belligerent, and he was giving the nurses a difficult time. She had brought her cello, thinking perhaps she could have one last lesson with him. She wound up playing all the Sarabandes and Allemandes in the entire Six Suites for Solo Cello by Bach, and finally, by the sixth suite, he fell asleep.

That experience, of helping her grandfather escape his agitation and find peace, through music, had a deeply personal and profound effect on Kendall. She realized that in every audience, there is someone receiving something - you may not even know.

"Even if we don't get to see it," Conyers reiterated, "we all have a part in making the world better."

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Check back over the next few weeks for write-ups from the many classes for music educators at the 2025 ASTA Conference.

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Richard Pairaudeau

March 23, 2025 at 07:54 AM · Interesting links for V.com readers to follow. I have learnt so much; solved some problems; found new problems, and discovered so many things to think about as a reader of this site.

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ASTA 2025: Yumi Kendall and Joseph Conyers - Changing the World Through Music

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