New Haven Independent

Goodwin, who was accompanied by his father Steve on the guitar, is not Jewish himself. He was moved to write and perform his work by the teaching he received of Elie Wiesel’s memoir Night and the “Facing History and Ourselves” curriculum at his school.

“I just wanted to express what it might have been like,” said Goodwin, who received a special commendation from the BOE, “for those people walking slowly to what they thought would be bath houses.”

“Facing History and Ourselves” is a citizenship and tolerance curriculum that is a centerpiece of the New Haven Academy.

Greg Baldwin, co-principal at New Haven Academy, said of his ninth-grader, “Taylor was using his love of art to inspire people.” What began as a school assignment, said Baldwin, grew into this moving work, which is accompanied by a PowerPoint with graphic images of the camps. It has astonished his colleagues at school where he has performed it several times.

“It wasn’t just that Taylor took the huge and difficult subject and made it his own,” said Baldwin, “but also that the performance on the violin was so passionate, that he inspired other kid to his level of accomplishment.”

According to Taylor’s dad, Steve, also a musician, his son’s been playing the violin only three years, having taken it up while at the Betsy Ross Arts Magnet School. “He just was home,” said his dad, “and playing this melody. I told him I thought it was beautiful, sad, but gorgeous. And he said to me, ‘It’s jut so painful, it makes me think of the Jewish people, and what they went through.’”

Board of Ed President Brian Perkins, in presenting the award to Goodwin, made a point of the young musician’s creativity: “What Taylor did reflects the wonderful opportunities that kids have in the New Haven Public Schools. It shows what kids can do that can never be measured on an hour and a half test. He’s shown us that he’s internalized values that he learned in work that he’s created.”

Principal Baldwin concurred: “A single 70-minute test in March is hardly the measure of a kid. No question that Taylor’s deep understanding of the weighty issues in the Holocaust is reflected through his music.”

Baldwin himself was praised by schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo for leading a school that for the second consecutive year is sending 100 percent of its seniors to college.

In nine separate ceremonies this week, New Haven will graduate 1,050 seniors — the most ever and the first time it has broken the 1,000 mark.