Camden music teacher leaving after making a big difference

"I'm not a soloist," says Suzzette Ortiz, who retires this week after teaching vocal music in Camden's public schools for 27 years.

"I do harmony."

That's an apt, if incomplete, description of what Ortiz has done for thousands of students, especially at the city's Creative Arts High School. She was there on opening day in 1999, and on Thursday, she'll close her classroom door in what is now the Creative Arts Morgan Village Academy for the last time.

"This is a big chapter of my life that's closing," says Ortiz, who grew up in Puerto Rico and lives in Pennsauken. "It may get emotional."

"May get emotional" is an uncharacteristic understatement for Ortiz, an energetic, exuberant woman who's an inch under five feet tall but seems larger than life when teaching or making music - particularly with other musicians. Like the players in the Latin jazz groups with whom she performs in the Philadelphia region, or the young singers in the Creative Arts choirs and vocal ensembles who among them have won awards in European and American competitions under her loving, but demanding, direction.

"At our last concert in Poland, I was boo-hooing. I was filled with emotion to see these kids embracing all this music," says Ortiz, who took 13 of her students to an international vocal competition in Krakow on June 10. They returned without a trophy, but with memories of a standing ovation for their performance of medieval, classical, and popular material in English, Spanish, Latin, and Zulu.

No wonder Superintendent Paymon Rouhanifard says the school district is "immensely grateful" for Ortiz's service. "She's an effervescent force for good who, through everything from international trips to small acts of kindness, has impacted thousands of students," he says.

"She's done so much for us," agrees Creative Arts senior Kenyatta Israel, 18, a tenor. "She's a great lady."

Ortiz was born 55 years ago and grew up in Bayamon, a middle-class community a half-hour from San Juan. The oldest of three girls in a musical household ("even our dogs liked music"), she earned an undergraduate degree in piano performance at the Music Conservatory of Puerto Rico.

But her hopes for a career on the concert stage were dashed by a crippling case of tendinitis in her right hand while she was completing her conservatory studies. "I was so depressed," she recalls. "I lost purpose."

Encouraged by family and friends, Ortiz was accepted into the graduate music education program at Temple University. Not long after earning a master's degree in 1986, she got her first teaching job in Camden.

As a "bilingual resource music teacher," she circulated among a dozen elementary and middle schools in a system that had been cutting costs by cutting back on the arts.

"The hardest part for me was teaching my students there is another world besides Camden," Ortiz says, sitting amid a swirl of activity in her classroom early one morning this week. "I had kids who had never crossed the bridge to go to Philly . . . kids in all sorts of financial and emotional situations. I had to sell them on the idea of being open-minded about the world, not only in music, but culture and community."

Ortiz had been exposed to the classical repertory growing up, and she sought to give her students a similarly broad musical education. "They should understand the history of vocal music, from Gregorian chant to contemporary," she says. "When I told them I wanted to show them an opera, or teach them about Renaissance music, they looked at me like I was losing my mind. But little by little, they fell in love."

Some students have lots of talent but little understanding of concepts such as practice. And Ortiz, who was 5 when her father bought her a piano, has high expectations.

"She makes sure you have it down," says Jakira McCoy, 16, who sings alto with the choir. "She's all about hard work and dedication. She says, 'You got it? Let me hear it.' "

Members of a chorus "have to listen to each other," Ortiz notes. "They have to be in sync. They have to find their spot in the circle."

Not shy about promoting her students or her work, she has garnered support among parents and the wider community. "People need to see you in action," Ortiz explains.

The resulting visibility of the vocal arts program has inspired support from benefactors in and around Camden, who have helped underwrite the cost of travel to student competitions in Ghana, Prague, Nashville, and elsewhere - including $25,000 for the Krakow trip.

"Suzzette has such a positive aura," says Choir Boosters president Wanda Poole, whose daughter, Sydney, 13, is a Creative Arts student vocalist. "She just loves the children of Camden."

There have been challenges; some parents are so disengaged that a teacher "becomes a parent," Ortiz says. Other people in the community "have a mentality that if you're not from Camden, you can't make a difference in Camden," she adds.

The state takeover of the city's chronically failing public schools in 2013 brought new pressures to bear on teachers. "The district is going through so many changes, and I felt like I wasn't growing," adds Ortiz. "It's no reflection on anybody . . . but last year I started feeling very overwhelmed. Going home with pains in my chest from stress. When you feel this way, it is time for a change."

Students and colleagues are sad, but understanding.

"I'm going to miss her tremendously," says Benita Farmer, the vocal music teacher for middle school students at Creative Arts. "I've been in the district 15 years and I've never seen anyone operate the way she does. What we can do is continue her legacy."

Ortiz has written more than a dozen chapters of a book she describes as a combination of memoir and how-to-guide for vocal music teachers. She also will keep on directing church choirs, as well as writing and performing original music.

"I want to continue to grow," says Ortiz, who has taken several workshops led by the esteemed vocalist Bobby McFerrin.

"I'm going again, as a retirement present to myself," she adds. "We just sing all day. We sing, and we are all unified."