Terri Allison, the new executive director of the Menuhin Foundation, wants more children on the Island to experience the joys of learning to play a musical instrument.The charity provides free introductory string lessons to children around the Island.It also offers private music lessons and the opportunity for budding musicians to perform in several different orchestras.Mrs Allison took over the position in January. She previously worked for 25 years, managing Willowbank in Somerset. The hotel recently closed and she was left at a crossroads in her life.“I was talking to my husband about what kind of things I might like to do with my time,” she said. “I was in a position where I could give my time to an organisation. It coincided with this opportunity coming up. Menuhin helps 250 students through its schools programme. I appreciate that Menuhin is very broad and impacts every sector of our community at a young age.”She has seen the benefits of playing an instrument with her own children. Each of her three daughters Christine, 20, Katherine, 18, and Victoria, 16 took violin lessons as children.All three girls were taught violin locally by Jyrki Pietila. Although they all have varying levels of interest in the violin, they are all dedicated to music. Christine is studying classical literature and music as a second major in college. Katherine is about to study voice at university; Victoria also plays the violin.“I didn’t play an instrument when I was little,” said Mrs Allison. “My parents didn’t have the money to pay for music lessons and there was no Menuhin Foundation to provide free ones.”It wasn’t until a teacher at Warwick Academy began offering music lessons that she finally had a chance to try out the viola at age 13. Although she didn’t grow up to be a musician, a passion for classical music was born and she described herself as “the only teenager on Ord Road with a Strauss album”.“I was interested in working for Menuhin because it is has a very broad schools programme,” said Mrs Allison. “There are over 250 students from both private and public schools in Bermuda who are receiving free introductory music lessons with Menuhin. It is my view that it is at the early age that you really have a chance to impact children’ lives.”She said Christine, started to show musical aptitude around age five. She had an incredible memory and could easily memorise any tune put in front of her without much effort.“She was very shy but enjoyed music a lot,” said Mrs Allison. “With her it just clicked. I don’t remember offering my younger daughters a choice about playing the violin. It was ‘here is the instrument, get on with it’.”Mrs Allison believed that the kind of music we listen to when we are young heavily impacts the kind of music we enjoy when we are older. For this reason she would like to see more children exposed to classical music at a younger age.“If you can get young children excited about music early, it tends to stay with them,” she said. “If they are not exposed to it at all and suddenly they find themselves in an environment where people are serious about music, classical music is like a foreign language.”One of the reasons she got involved with Menuhin was to have an opportunity to spread her passion for music and encourage children to listen to broaden their musical tastes.“I want to see young people excited about classical music,” she said. “Often times you hear children saying ‘this is boring’, but I feel that classical music is a genre that when you get the time to learn it, you can find that it is exciting. You do enjoy it and it is not boring.”Menuhin offers free string classes to schoolchildren in a group setting for a year, as an introduction to playing an instrument. One of her goals is to see more children have the opportunity to take private instruction.“You can do a lot in a group setting but when you are starting out you really do need private instruction,” she said. “I would like to see more opportunity for young children who show an aptitude or an interest to take lessons privately. They may not be able to afford private lessons so it would require more funding on Menuhin’s part.”She was confident that this could happen if more members of the community bought into her vision for the programme.“I have found the community here to be very generous,” she said. “They have to know that you are serious. Sometimes it is a matter of asking. I am not afraid to go and ask for something like this, because I think it is really worthwhile in the long run. The more that children are engaged in positive activities, the less likely they will be engaged in negative activities.”She found out at a tag day this month that many people are still unaware of what Menuhin is and what it does.“They never heard of it before,” she said. “I want to get our name out there more so that people know who we are and what we do. I can’t think of another organisation that is in every primary school, providing for schoolchildren at no charge to the schoolchildren.“I want to thank the people who supported the Menuhin tag day. I have to mention our chairperson for the Menuhin tag day, Judy Gibbons. She was the one who came to the forefront and made sure everything was well done.”The Menuhin end of school year concert will be held at Bermuda High School for Girls on June 9 at 5pm. All three Menuhin Foundation orchestras will perform. Tickets can be bought on the day of the concert $10 for adults, $5 for seniors and students.