Keep Sandy Tatge As Conductor Of Roosevelt Orchestra Program

To Whom It May Concern:

We, the undersigned, are deeply concerned with the decision to replace Sandra Tatge, director of the Roosevelt High School orchestra program. Sandy has developed the TRHS orchestra into an award-winning program and is widely recognized as the pre-eminent high school strings program in all of central Iowa.

Through her leadership and the unique qualifications she brings to the program, many of her students have gone on to major in musical studies, and others have excelled in multiple areas, all impacted by the rich exposure to music and making music in her orchestras. Following are some of her credentials and awards the Roosevelt Orchestra has won with Tatge at the helm:

NATIONAL LEVEL MUSIC FESTIVALS The Roosevelt Orchestra has made 5 trips in the 12 years Mrs. Tatge has been the director. In all 5 festivals the Roosevelt orchestra was selected as the top orchestra in its class. Last year’s orchestra trip to the Heritage Festival in Chicago resulted in them being selected to go , for the second time in 4 years, to a special higher level Festival, the Festival of Gold, attended by only other top orchestra programs from around the country.

IOWA HS MUSIC ASSOC. SOLO & ENS. FESTIVAL This festival is held yearly for school orchestras from all over central Iowa, and Roosevelt always takes a large contingent of performers. This year, typical of many years, they entered 40 performances. Roosevelt students received 26 I ratings, and 14 II ratings. This is a high percentage of I ratings. This year, as in the past 6 years, Roosevelt student performers received the “Best of Center” award. This designation goes to the person or musical group deemed by the judge to be the best performance heard by the judge that day out of the 65 performances heard.

ALL STATE MUSIC FESTIVAL- Between 5-12 All State musicians are selected every year from the Roosevelt orchestra in a very highly competitive string competition. In several years , the only students making All Sate from the Des Moines school district have been string students from the Roosevelt Orchestra program.

ROOSEVELT CHAMBER ORCH. Mrs. Tatge has organized a before -school 20-member chamber orchestra , drawn from her top performing students. The Chamber Orchestra has performed at Solo/Ensemble Festival all 12 years she has been at Roosevelt, and every year received I ratings, as well as the occasional further distinction of being named “Best of Center”. This Orchestra has been very active in the Des Moines area performing at many social and club functions, as well as being selected several times by local church choir directors to perform major works of choral and string literature. This has provided both the churches and the Roosevelt students with advanced musical experiences that rival the accomplishments of many college and university music programs.

ROOSEVELT STRING QUARTET Mrs. Tatge has formed many string quartets over the years that have played at events that occur in the Roosevelt and larger community. Various quartets over the 12 years have played at countless weddings, church services, and social events throughout the community, giving the students invaluable professional music experiences and exposure to the general public of the high level of performance going on in the string program at Roosevelt.

DES MOINES AREA SUZUKI INST. Mrs. Tatge created and lead 3 separate levels of string orchestras for the Des Moines Area Suzuki Institute for 14 years.

COLORADO SUZUKI INSTITUTE Mrs. Tatge spent 5 summers as conductor of student orchestras at the Colorado Suzuki Institute in Snowmass, CO.

Sandy Tatge has been a string music teacher in the Des Moines School district for 12 years currently. She was also a string teacher in Des Moines from 1969-1983 when she retired at the time of her first child’s birth. She stayed at home to raise her 2 children before coming back to Roosevelt as an orchestra teacher in 1998. She has been a member of the Des Moines Symphony Orchestra for 45 years, joining the symphony her freshman year in college as part of her scholarship stipend to attend Drake University.

She has lead a private cello studio for 40 years. She has taken her students to competitions across the country, where they always receive recognition. She takes an active interest in each and every student, cares about them as human beings, and would do anything (and has often done MUCH) to assist a struggling student, as well as honor and encourage the successful ones.

Not only could no one fill her shoes, I am extremely worried that the incomparably invaluable musical program she has developed would never be the same if she left, and reassigning her to a social studies classroom would not only be an insane waste of talent, but a travesty of judgment for our children’s sake.