By Melody Zhao and Tessa Hu

This article originally appeared in The Deerfield Scroll, the student newspaper of Deerfield Academy. It has been lightly edited for context and is presented with permission from the Scroll.

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“Tutti.” It’s not just the music term that indicates when everyone plays together. Since this past summer, Tutti has also denoted the name of Yoonsa Lee’s series of benefit youth concerts to fundraise for her local library. 

Lee, an associate editor for Scroll, the student newspaper at Deerfield Academy, has held four concerts, two last August, one in September, and another last December in the Jones Library. From Bon Jovi to Mozart to Christmas music, each concert showcased a variety of repertoire and featured performers who ranged from age seven to adults.

To date, the series has raised over $700 for the Jones Library Capital Campaign (JLCC), a project of the non-profit Friends of the Jones Library that aims to fundraise for the renovation and expansion of the Jones Library. In addition to donations from the GoFundMe campaign that Lee set up, each concert brought in between $100 and $200 dollars from audience donations. 

“Tutti” has generated much more than financial value. In the process, Lee’s concerts brought together a community of musicians and book lovers, provided performance opportunities for local musicians, and demonstrated the power of collective efforts to support a local cause. 

Ginny Hamilton, a Campaign Manager at Friends of the Jones Library, shared how the Jones Library urgently requires repair for its fire suppression, heating and cooling system, and roof leaks that can damage current book collections. The JLCC plans on raising about a third of the construction cost from grants, donors, and events like Lee’s “Tutti” concert series.

Last year, Lee received the Workman Grant from Deerfield Academy’s Center for Service and Global Citizenship to host “Tutti.” At first, Lee reached out to a venue to host the concert, but switched to hosting it in the Jones Library partly because the venue was closed during August. Lee said, “When I talked to the library staff about my idea, they were really impressed…obviously we could help raise money. But I think it was also really meaningful to have music in the library, too. Another reason why I chose the library over the venue was because I wanted it to be accessible to everyone.”

In June, Lee contacted Hamilton, Head of Youth Services Mia Cabana, and library staff about organizing “Tutti”. Hamilton appreciated Lee’s gesture in reaching out. “I was thrilled … to have others that you don’t know reach out and say, ‘I love this too, and here’s how I want to help,’” she said. 

Lee and Hamilton worked together to coordinate the logistics of “Tutti,” including setting up the schedule, designing the flyers, and communicating with library staff to reserve rooms and chairs. Regarding their partnership, Hamilton said, “All of the work with the musicians was all her. It was a really nice partnership between the staff who knew the details and Yoonsa who knew the music and the performance.” 

Lee also accompanied over half of the performances on the viola. Lee said, “For roughly half of a program, I would accompany the younger performers and we would go in roughly age order.”

The series received praise from many audience members. Former Deerfield teacher Christina Kopp, whose daughter performed in “Tutti,” said, “It [the concert series] seemed like such a good project because it was the intersection between helping out the library and celebrating music.” 

Andy Chen, a junior at Deerfield, who watched Yoonsa arrange the “How to Train Your Dragon” quartet, said, “There’s a lot of very impressive work that she put towards this project. And I hope people know that.”

Hamilton recalled a memorable performance by a boy who sang a Bon Jovi song and played an electric guitar. After listening to a performance of “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley, Hamilton said, “I was impressed that they successfully rickrolled the entire library.”

“Tutti” and its advertisements successfully raised awareness for the Jones Library Capital Campaign and brought people into the library, according to Hamilton. “I know folks that came to the concert series because they supported the library and were pleased to see the young people involved,” she said. “And I know people who came to see their kids play and learned about the library and the library’s needs.

Dr. Kopp agreed that the concert series raised community awareness about the library’s needs. She recalled that at one performance, on a very rainy day, she overheard a conversation among audience members: “The rain was coming down on that glass roof in the Jones Library, and they feared it was going to start leaking … So they were like, ‘This is a prime example of why we need to repair the roof.’”

Lee’s experiences performing as a younger musician moved her to provide opportunities for young musicians in Amherst to perform through “Tutti.” Growing up in Madison, Wisconsin, Lee was part of Suzuki Strings of Madison, a program where she participated in group classes and performed in venues such as a children’s hospital, a museum, and a botanical garden. Lee said, “After moving to Amherst, Massachusetts, from Madison, Wisconsin, I noticed that I didn’t have that many performance opportunities, especially as a young kid, I was seven years old…so I wanted to bring something similar to Amherst for local, younger musicians.”

Deerfield music lesson instructor Lan Wang said, “I’m very impressed with Yoonsa’s program. It gets a lot of young children exposed to performance.” Ms. Wang’s daughter played in her first trio at Tutti. “She learned to listen and collaborate, not to just play by self,” Ms. Wang explained.

In alignment with its name, “Tutti” brought people together for a common cause. “It was a lovely time to bring a lot of people that I would have never otherwise met together,” Chen said. “It was great for the library, Yoonsa, the local community, these few Deerfield musicians, and all sorts of teachers to come together and appreciate the great music that we can put out together as a community.

Melody Zhao lives in Amherst and is a student at Deerfield Academy. She is an Associate Editor for The Deerfield Scroll. Tessa Hu is a student at Deerfield Academy and is a Staff Writer for The Deerfield Scroll.