Durango – A police officer who was called to handle a complaint about a Friday night disturbance involving perhaps a dozen young people opted not to write any tickets.
The middle and high school students, assembled in cramped commercial space in the back of a building and hidden from view by thin, yellow paper plastered over a window, were playing music – guitar, bass, keyboards, steel drums and all other kinds of percussion.
It’s all part of the Stillwater Foundation’s after- school programs.
Three nights a week, the students play the kind of jazz and calypso strains that get them invited to film, music and food festivals all over the state. It’s the kind of music education that helped one senior (also a board member) win a scholarship to a Seattle conservatory. But it’s also the kind of music that prompts other tenants, such as a vacuum repairman, to complain of noise to teacher Steve Dejka, the landlord or even police.
A classic small town
A real sanctuary for talented young musicians, where Dejka doesn’t have to hush his drummers, is just one of the hopes and dreams fostered by the Stillwater Foundation and its founder, a semiretired tax attorney from the big city.
Two years ago, St. Louis resident Anthony Gasaway and his wife handpicked Durango as the classic small town to finish rearing their two teens. But along with beautiful neighborhoods, a safe downtown and friendly folks, Gasaway was struck by something else about small- town life – very limited opportunities for students interested in the arts or nontraditional sports.
So, Stillwater’s stated mission is to make waves in local arts and humanities, and, one day perhaps, across Colorado. The name also evokes a calm place for youths to go.
“I grew up in a pretty rough part of St. Louis,” he said. “Out of the 104 kids in my grade school, 16 were in prison before age 25. Two went to college. I was one of them. I guess the idea of ‘Stillwater’ is to give kids a calm place to go.”
Gasaway, who estimates he put in about $300,000 of his own money, launched two programs – music and gymnastics. For gymnastics, Gasaway consults with top U.S. gymnast Sasha Artemov and his Olympic gold- medalist father, Vladimir Artemov, both of Denver. For the music program, Gasaway picks the brains of Stanford and Oxford scholars. He has found a willing partner in the city of Durango, eager to bolster its recreation programs. Durango School District 9-R administrators were nonresponsive, he says, to his repeated attempts to work with them to augment the few hours a week of music instruction available in public schools.
“I have no musical background,” Gasaway says. “I can’t read a note. I was never a gymnast. But, to me, it’s important for society to have this for kids.”
So far, without advertising, Stillwater’s gymnastics program has attracted about a dozen students, and 20 participants are in the music program. Students pay $100 a month, but more than half are in the program on scholarships.
Gasaway says he is impressed by the willing spirits, such as Dejka and musical co-director and pianist Lawrence Nass, the Artemovs, Denver gym owner Jim Trammel and others, who have taken little or no money for their efforts as Stillwater attempts to expand programs.
“The hopes and dreams are … Stillwater will be a big tree, with the music program the first branch,” Nass says. “It’s a place not just for learning how to play music, but how to pursue music as a career. It’s a place where kids can have music in their lives.”
Rehearsing for a gig
Though a school holiday, this past Monday’s after-school session is well attended. It’s a rehearsal, after all, for a gig at Fort Lewis College in early March. The students saunter in and take their places with their instruments against a backdrop that they painted lime green.
They wonder aloud whether a police officer will again interrupt rehearsal. “These kids are playing some stuff that’s so advanced they don’t even have a clue how hard it is. I just don’t treat it like it’s that difficult,” says Dejka, a 39-year-old professional drummer. “I treat them more like professional musicians. They have gigs.”
The students banter with Dejka, who cautions them to play “Taste of Honey” and “Afro Blue” a little lower this night. “He’s very easy to learn with,” senior Spencer Balchunas says of Dejka. “He’s a slave driver, but he’s a fun slave driver.”
Alex Dolphin, the senior bound for a Seattle conservatory, says Dejka is “awesome.”
“This group is super-focused,” she says. “It’s a super-great opportunity for us. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have music. It’s important in the world.”
Staff writer Electa Draper can be reached at 970-385-0917 or edraper@denverpost.com.
