The 2008 Westerville Music Project was something I conceived during the spring, as a tribute to the Westerville Sesquicentennial and the city’s legacy as the home of Benjamin R. Hanby. The project builds on the 2007 Westerville Schools Leadership Summit and the Mark Twain Elementary Music Summer Camp, that was administered by Dr. Scott Ebbrecht, principal.
The objective of the 2008 Westerville Music Project was to write and record as many songs as possible with Westerville school students and prepare a series of compact discs and a book to place in the community’s sesquicentennial time capsule. The project involved students in the multidisciplines of song writing, performing, recording techniques, as well as the history and music of Benjamin R. Hanby, Westerville’s most noted historical figure, who was an educator, as well as a composer.
Beth Weinhart, of the Westerville Public Library, expressed an interest in providing Hanby music resource materials from library and Otterbein University archives. Mary Bigham, a volunteer with the Hanby House, also offered to duplicate and provide Hanby scores from her private collection of songs that Ben Hanby used to teach students.
I guess Ben Hanby and I do the same thing, only separated by one hundred-fifty years. I love history, music, kids and I have been having the most wonderful experiences with Westerville students since Bob Abbott brought me and my Creole Funk band to John Greenleaf Whittier Elementary in 1987.
Ben Hanby is said to have written more than eighty songs in his short life (1833-67); most devoted to educating his students. As time passes and the population Westerville community grows with newly arriving families, his name is still present on a school building and the historical Hanby home site, but his life work has been forgotten in the rush of our modern life.
I hope this effort to bridge the one hundred fifty years since Ben made his songs will carry his legacy at least another fifty years. Who knows what young Westerville composer and songwriter might be in the hearts of music lovers in 2058 when Westerville celebrates its bicentennial, opens the Ben Hanby Songs book and listens to these recordings.
I have performed countless events in the Westerville communities; the Music and Arts Festival, Alum Creek Park, Heritage Park, Otterbein College, Central College Presbyterian Church, the Library, the Scoreboard Restaurant and every school building in the district, weddings and parties for local families.
Because of the Westerville Music Project, Benjamin R. Hanby is in the hearts of Westerville students today!
