Janis McKay knew that plenty of opportunities await musicians who can play the oboe, bassoon, or French horn — instruments rarely chosen and played by students. The challenge was finding a way to get young musicians interested in what she calls the "endangered instruments" — and then giving them the chance to excel.

McKay and her UNLV music department colleagues, oboist Stephen Caplan, center, and French horn player Bill Bernatis, provide free, hour-long lessons each week to students from nine at-risk middle schools.

The program targets students in selected middle schools that are classified as serving at-risk students — in other words those students who, because of social or economic factors, are believed to be less likely to uccessfully complete their K-12 education without some special attention.

McKay says that typically the bassoon, oboe, and French horn are at a major disadvantage when it comes time for young students to choose an instrument.

To start with, the herd instinct is in play, and students tend to see everyone around them playing one of the more popular instruments — the flute, clarinet, or trumpet, McKay says, adding that many of them have never heard someone play a French horn, bassoon, or oboe. Some, she says, have never even seen the instruments.

"Many times the schools can't afford the instruments," McKay notes. While a good student-model trumpet, for instance, often can be purchased for $500 or less, a student-model bassoon or oboe typically costs between $2,000 and $3,000, she says. (A professional model bassoon can cost more than $30,000.)

And, while many of the more popular instruments can be rented from music stores, those same stores tend not to carry oboes, bassoons, and French horns because the demand for them is not great; also, they are expensive to maintain.

"The problem with the French horn is not the expense of buying it, but the difficulty beginners face when they take up the instrument," she says. "They struggle because the French horn is a more difficult instrument to start on than, say, a trumpet or a trombone. Sometimes kids who are not really serious will get frustrated and quit the horn before they're committed to it because they have the idea that it's just too hard. But actually, once they get going, it's no more difficult than anything else."

One selling point for the French horn is that it is often used by movie studios for soundtracks, according to McKay.

"It gets all the great themes in the movies and all the great musical lines. Somebody who's a good French horn player can look forward to having really rewarding parts to play, including lots of solos. In addition to that, the French horn is the one instrument that's used in both the woodwind and the brass quintets," she says.

To get the program off the ground, McKay, Bernatis, and Caplan went to the various middle schools to talk with the students and to perform for them so that they could hear what these particular instruments sound like.

Knowing that familiar music would appeal to the students more than would material they hadn't heard before, the trio picked their musical choices with care. For McKay, that meant choosing "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" from Fantasia to demonstrate the bassoon.

To demonstrate the oboe, Caplan usually played the snake charmer music from the movie Aladdin, she says.

Bernatis, playing the French horn, had many familiar movie musical scores to choose from and often would play music from Star Wars, Robin Hood, or Batman.

After the professors' presentation, students who thought they might be interested in learning one of the endangered instruments contacted their music teachers. The teachers then recommended to the professors those students they thought would be successful in the program.

The schools' band directors are enthusiastic about the program, McKay says, both because it provides them with badly needed oboe, French horn, and bassoon players and because it provides the students with instruction from musicians who are experts on those instruments.

The band directors appreciate the program also because they have to spend the majority of their time on the instruments being played by the greatest number of students, she says, adding that the band directors themselves tend to be more proficient on those more common instruments.

Phil Haines, who was the band director at Smith Middle School last spring, says the Endangered Instruments Program benefits both the school music programs and the individual students.

"The music programs benefit because many schools wouldn't have any players on these instruments if it weren't for this program," Haines says. "It's also a big help for the students to receive lessons from musicians who are experts on these difficult instruments. Anytime I have students playing these instruments, I try to get them private lessons, but that is an expense many families cannot afford."

One major benefit to students who stick with the program and show promise on their instruments, according to McKay, is that playing one of these particular instruments well can be a good route to college.

McKay offers bassoon instruction to Pedro Deleon, a sixth-grader participating in the program.

She says that is one reason she wanted to take the program to at-risk schools where many students come from low-income families.

"If the students are successful, this could be really a great way for them to get beyond any economic limitations they might face and have a way to get to college that would provide them some scholarship money," she says.

McKay herself received a college scholarship because she could play the bassoon, even though, by her own admission, she wasn't the best bassoon player at the time. And, as is the case for many students, the bassoon hadn't been her first choice of instruments.

"I started out playing piano in the third grade. Then I picked up saxophone in the band when I was in sixth grade. I sang in choirs at my church the whole time that I was home. And I played the handbells. I just really liked music, and I was good at it when I was young," she recalls.

It wasn't until the 11th grade that she began playing the bassoon, and then only because Joe David, her band director at Valdosta High School in Valdosta, Ga., asked her to help out by learning the instrument because, not surprisingly, no one else in the school was playing it.

"I actually wasn't that interested in it. I really wanted to play the oboe, and I figured that if I humored him, I would get to do that," she says. "I wasn't particularly crazy about it when I first started. It wasn't until I got to college that I really liked it."

When it came time to go to college, McKay applied to Florida State University and auditioned for a saxophone scholarship.

She was a very good saxophone player and had no trouble being accepted into the program; however, she was not offered any scholarship money, which meant she couldn't afford to go there.

"Saxophone players are a dime a dozen, and it didn't matter how good I was; they just didn't need anyone," she says.

Then one day the bassoon teacher from the University of Georgia called.

The interesting thing was that McKay hadn't even applied to the University of Georgia. And, she says, at that time she certainly wasn't an outstanding bassoonist.

"The bassoon teacher called me because a percussionist from the University of Georgia had traveled through my town and heard me play and then told the teacher about it. Keep in mind that my hometown is about five hours away from the University of Georgia — that's how far afield they were having to look for a bassoon player."

The professor ended up recruiting two freshmen bassoon players that year, including McKay, and considered it a very successful year.

Once she was in college, McKay's feelings about the bassoon changed.

"I had been self-taught up until that point," she says. "Once I had real lessons with a real bassoon teacher — someone who could show me the things I needed to know — I got to where I really loved it. I liked the parts I got to play. I liked the tone of the bassoon. I liked the fact that I got to be in an orchestra, which was not an option for me as a saxophone player, as there are few orchestral saxophone parts."

Clearly, she did change her mind about the bassoon. She now holds three degrees in music — a bachelor of music education from the University of Georgia, a master of music from the University of Louisville, and a doctor of musical arts degree from Ohio State University. And, she has played the bassoon for a host of symphony and chamber orchestras from Austria to West Virginia to Illinois.

At UNLV, she, Caplan, and Bernatis are members of the Sierra Winds, a group that has performed across the country and around the world and is considered by many to be one of the leading wind quintets in the nation. She is also principal bassoonist with the Las Vegas Philharmonic and a member of the Pro Music Chamber Orchestra of Columbus, an assignment that requires her to travel to Ohio each month.

McKay says there's no doubt that her own successful experience as a bassoonist is one of the reasons she is so enthusiastic about the Endangered Instruments Program and what it can mean for the middle school students enrolled in it.

That's why she would like to see the program expand to include both more students and more instruments, including some of the string instruments, such as the viola.

McKay says such an expansion would require more money because if the program is to grow much larger, it will need to be able to pay teachers to go out into the schools. At some point the number of students enrolled would become too high for the UNLV faculty and student volunteers to handle alone.

She says an exciting recent development is a show of interest by the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra in partnering with UNLV and the school district in offering the program. The Philharmonic's primary role would be to assist with grant writing, which could lead to increased funding.

"I'm so excited about the possibility of the Philharmonic joining with us and helping with grant writing," McKay says. "The potential for expanding the program and helping more students is limited only by money."

And, what is without limit, she adds, is the potential for what students can achieve through the program.