For 10 years, Doug Brush has shared his internationally acclaimed skills as a percussionist with North Shore School District 112 students.

Even after all that time, he still marvels as the look of excitement in the eyes of the students.

"This is a classroom experience they can't get anywhere else," Brush said.

For more than a decade, District 112 has worked with the Ravinia Festival Education and Community Partnership, which provides an extraordinary musician-in-residence program at one of the schools. This fall it was Sherwood's turn, and in the spring the site shifts to Northwood Jr. High.

Brush, who has performed and lectured to over 100,000 public school students in the last decade, spent 10 weeks at Sherwood working with the fourth grade students and music teacher Kathryn Polyack for a couple of hours a week. The finale was a concert in front of their parents on Dec. 16.

The concert featured groups of the fourth graders in a half circle with Brush in front leading them in a variety of beats on drums. Often times, he freelances drum beats which means the students have to keep a close eye on him to be able to mirror what he pounds out.

"It's so much more than teaching drums," Brush said. "It's showing them a different culture and even reinforcing good classroom behavior."