When Pleasant Valley Junior High Orchestra Director Lauryn Deets, NBCT, looked closely at the music available for young string players, she noticed something missing. While many published pieces focused on traditional European composers, there were fewer opportunities for students to learn music created by composers from diverse backgrounds or pieces designed to intentionally build specific skills.
Rather than accept those limitations, Deets decided to create something new.
While completing her master’s degree, Deets took a string arranging class that changed how she viewed her role as a music educator. “I used to think we were beholden to teach whatever music the publishers put out,” she shared. Through that coursework, she realized she could write and arrange music herself to fill gaps in the curriculum and better meet student needs.
Her first published piece began as a historic work by Horace Weston, a renowned Black banjo player from the 1800s known as “the world’s greatest banjoist,” who toured internationally and even performed for Queen Victoria. Deets rearranged Weston’s music to make it accessible for fifth-grade string players, intentionally designing it to teach a specific technique known as hooked bows.
After submitting the arrangement to a publisher and signing a contract, Deets worked closely with a string editor, who also happened to be her former professor. Together, they refined the piece through an editing process that ultimately brought it to publication.
A key part of that journey was collaboration at Pleasant Valley. Deets credits co-teacher Lee Starovich for supporting the process by allowing her to test the piece with their combined fifth-grade orchestra. The students performed it during their spring concert, giving Deets the opportunity to see how her ideas translated to real musicians in real time.
For Deets, composing and arranging music is about more than credentials, though students do take notice. “When I make musical suggestions or edits now, students think, ‘She must know what she’s talking about. She writes music too,’” she said.
More importantly, she hopes her work shows students that creativity has no fixed boundaries. “If they don’t see what they want, they can write it or create it themselves,” Deets explained. She looks forward to continuing to develop high-quality music resources so Pleasant Valley students can learn the full range of skills needed to play a string instrument.
Through her work as an educator, arranger, and lifelong learner, Lauryn Deets is expanding both the music her students play and the possibilities they imagine for themselves, truly reflecting Pleasant Valley’s commitment to excellence.