Pictured are Flutist Chideha Osondu with her father, Ejike, mother, Chinwe, and Pastor Larry Fama of St. Thomas the Apostle Church.
Chideha Osondu is off to a flying start, to say the least.
The Bloomfield High School sophomore, who plays the piccolo in the marching band, will begin attending Julliard next month on a scholarship to study the flute.
She began playing the instrument when she was nine years old and at Oak View Elementary School. Students who wanted to play in the school’s band were choosing their instruments.
“I picked the flute because of its weight,” she said recently at St. Thomas the Apostle Church where she regularly performs at Mass. “I also play the trumpet for fun, the saxophone and piano, but mostly the flute and piano.”
It took her three weeks to produce a recognizable tone on the flute, Chideha said. After that, she was able to progress a bit faster. Her belief in God, she said, helps her to persevere, as does her family.
“There’s a shame if you don’t progress,” she said. “And my family also encourages us to be the best we can be.”
Chideha’s father, Ejike, a software developer, was born in America, but emigrated to Nigeria as a small boy and returned after college. Her mother, Chinwe, works in the special education department at the state Department of Education.
“When I was growing up,” Ejike said, “the emphasis was for children to go to school or learn a trade. But in Nigeria, education opens up the doors to white collar
jobs. If you’re a farmer, and successful, that’s OK. But if you end up with a subsistence job, it barely feeds your family.”
It was during the Covid lockdown that Chideha said she began to learn on her own by studying videos and the books her parents brought home.
“There was a composition I started to work on, ‘The New World Symphony,’ by Dvorak,” she said. “After the eight o’clock Mass, I asked Dr. Patricio Molina if I could play it with him. The church was empty.”
Molina is the director of liturgical music at St. Thomas. For the nine-year-old to play with him was a turning point.
“I’ve always been somewhat confident because I play sports,” she explained. “But it was also my desire to progress and playing with accompaniment was a good idea.”
In Molina, Chideha had impressed someone who could help her. The director, who plays the piano and organ at the church, as a boy had performed on TV in his native Chile, played in Carnegie Hall, played for Pavarotti and the King of Jordan, but significantly for the girl, he was the director of the Greater Newark Conservancy, at the Newark School of the Arts.
“He got a recording of one of my best performances from my mom and gave it to the Newark School of the Arts,” she said.
Chideha was accepted and received a Jeffrey Carollo and Frank Calabrese Music Scholarship, from NJPAC, for her studies. It will continue while she is at Julliard.
Chideha was also a member of the Youth Orchestras of Essex County, from September of last year to the past June.
“I had a teacher there, Jessica Valdente, who let me know there was a program at Julliard, on Saturdays,” she said.
An applicant went through three rounds of judgement. The first was a recording of a performance. Then a live audition and finally an interview. The process took six months. Chideha opened her acceptance letter in June.
“It was like opening a college admissions letter,” she said. “It was really cool.”
The Julliard program will continue while Chideha attends BHS. At the high school, she is a member of the Wind Ensemble playing flute and piccolo and is a member of the Bloomfield Youth Band. At the church, she serves as a narrator, on Good Friday, for the Living Stations of the Cross and will this year be the youth representative of the Pastoral Council.
So, what’s in the stars?
“I either want to be a neurosurgeon, a cardiologist or go into an orchestra,” Chideha said. “When I was younger, I always thought the anatomy of the human body was interesting.”
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