When Mattituck High School band and chorus members noticed student musicians playing at athletic events and NJROTC drills, they became curious. After doing a little research and talking to the kids at these events, they discovered that the musicians were members of a national music honor society called Tri-M.
They wanted in.
High school music teacher Melanie Malusa, a former Tri-M member herself, was completely supportive and guided the students towards their goal of starting a chapter at Mattituck. On December 8 an induction ceremony was held at the high school and it became official.
The Tri-M Music Honor Society began in 1936 at Park Ridge, Illinois’ Maine Township High School. Founded by the school’s music department chairman Alexander Harley to recognize students for their musical and academic achievements, it was originally named the Maine Music Masters, then the Modern Music Masters until “Tri-M” was chosen as their official name. Tri-M is a program of the National Association for Music Education; currently there are over 1,800 chapters in all 50 states and several international chapters.
“Tri-M is a service organization to promote music and music education in schools by being present in the community, volunteering at events, raising money for the music program and putting a really good face on the music program,” explains Malusa. “I feel like a lot of times it can be easy to get lost in the shuffle and I want to make sure everyone knows that we’re doing really great things here.”
The society is for students in grades six through 12 and its aim is to highlight school music programs through service projects and public performances. Although the Mattituck chapter is brand new, students have already performed their first service project — attending the elementary school concert and helping the students and the music teacher out.
“I had a bunch of kids who jumped in to help and they did it without any direction from me. I offered it up to them and they went down there and did that work themselves,” says Malusa. “They just figured out what they needed to do. They helped the kids with things like broken instruments or reeds; they provided an extra set of hands.”
“In the future we’d like to go to elementary schools, nursing homes, hospitals. I have kids who want to go stand in front of the market in Mattituck and play just to show what they’re doing and share that with people.”
According to National Association for Music Education guidelines, Tri-M members “must be enrolled in at least one music class for at least one semester, have a 2.0 GPA in their core classes, a 3.0 in their music class(es), and be of strong character.”
Malusa, who is in her second year teaching high school, is extremely proud of the 31 band and chorus students who’ve become members so far.
“It’s so exciting for me to see my students getting something like this started.”
