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The Ensemble seeks to connect and inform all people who are committed to ensemble music education for youth empowerment and social change.
 
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GLI Imagined Community Concert: Ubuntu Bulamu at Brass for Africa

Maryen Muñoz (author), Atteqa Malik, Keziah Ntwiga, Kenneth Mwiti, and Catherine Aziz Shawky, Global Leaders ’23 cohort members

03-01-2023

During interviews, BFA Founder Jim Trott emphasized gender inequality as a prominent issue in the places where they work, citing data that indicates the problem has worsened during the pandemic. As Jim referenced several alarming practices—domestic violence, dowry violence, acid attack, forced marriage, sexual harassment, human trafficking, forced prostitution—it became clear to us that our imagined concert would need to raise awareness of this issue.

Raising Refugee Voices at the Tumaini Festival

Thandi Dyani, Network Organizer, BMW Foundation Africa Region, and Trésor Mpauni, Founder, The Tumaini Festival

01-04-2023

At first, the participation of the refugee community was meager, because the idea of a festival in a refugee camp was almost inconceivable. After the first one, however, the community got a sense of what a festival is like and what possibilities and opportunities might come from it. News of the festival started spreading all over Malawi and abroad.

Seeds of a Music Program Sprout in Congo

Irismer Kasamira, violinist; Founder, El Sistema Congo

12-07-2022

In 2021, I started doing online research about great violinists, recorder players, and orchestras. On Facebook, I came across a gentleman named Roberto Zambrano, a great musician and educator and a good person. I said to myself: “I have just found someone with whom to share my ideas.”

Conserving the Past, Composing the Future at Kakuma Sound

Treynor Tumwa and Mark LeVine, Cofounders, Kakuma Sound

11-02-2022

Africa’s Great Lakes Region has long been a crossroads for migrations of people, from the Indian Ocean in the east to the tropical forests to the west to the headwaters of the Nile up north. It’s precisely these factors that made Kakuma an ideal location for a refugee camp to shelter peoples from the numerous conflicts along these routes. Almost nowhere else on the planet do musicians from so many different African cultures and countries live in such proximity.

At Brass for Africa, the Debut Is the First Lesson

Ronald Kabuye, Project Manager, Brass for Africa

08-03-2022

Our recruitment methods are organic and, of course, optional; teachers put on unofficial concerts that help participants feel comfortable and self-assured in performance settings. As young people share in the vibrancy and joy of making music, they begin to see themselves as musicians.

A Far-Flung Teaching Partnership to Keep a Namibian Music School Alive

Enrico Palascino, violinist, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), Germany

06-01-2022

Recently, we have created an initiative whereby dedicated musicians from Germany fly to Namibia at regular intervals for the next five to six years to pass on their pedagogical knowledge to the YONA music teacher team. The initiative is already up and running; we recruited the German teachers by selecting them from different European music education programs.

Instilling—and then Measuring—Confidence in Young Band Members

Amanda Holt, Strategic Information Specialist, Field Band Foundation

04-06-2022

Six thousand children participate in field bands across South Africa. These bands operate in rural and peri-urban communities that have little in the way of cultural, educational, or public health infrastructure. After-school activities are few. And yet, within these communities’ growing bands, people are growing, too.

Ghetto Classics Dance, in Nairobi, Kenya

Joanna Priwieziencew, who has danced with companies in the U.S., Europe, and Egypt, and now divides her time between the U.S. and Kenya, where she heads the dance program of Ghetto Classics

02-02-2022

On the crowded roads of Korogocho, with its 300,000 inhabitants on 1.5 sq. km, its tin homes with no running water and open sewage, and its backdrop of Dandora (an immense, ever-growing, and constantly burning mountain of garbage), one can scarcely imagine encountering a center filled with live arts. But that is the home of Ghetto Classics, where every corner, every room vibrates with music—from Chopin to Tanzanian composer Adam Salim.

Grants Aid Marginalized Populations in the U.S., East Africa, and Central America

08-18-2021

Jewish Helping Hands’ Tikkun Olam Grant Program helps vulnerable populations across the world by supporting projects focused on economic development and social empowerment, with a particular emphasis on those demographics that have been overlooked or marginalized. Projects in the United States, East Africa, and Central America, as well as regions worldwide with impoverished Jewish populations, are given priority. Grants range up to $10,000 for projects in the U.S. and up to $5,000 for projects in other countries. Initial inquiry forms must be submitted by September 14, 2021; invited full applications will be due December 14, 2021. Visit the Jewish Helping Hands website to learn more.

Empathetic Music Programming
Or: How I Learned to Stop Teaching Like an Englishman

Philip Monk, Founder, Mbale Schools Band

08-04-2021

I’m often asked about the Mbale Schools Band. It’s easy to see why: we are a celebrated and widely visible British-style brass band founded in Uganda, a country with no tradition of or overwhelming interest in such an ensemble. But while ours is a success story, it is also one of listening and deep empathy—a parable for the virtue of placing yourself in your students’ shoes. Without their wisdom, it’s likely that we would not have made it past year three.

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