Collaborations

 
The Ensemble seeks to connect and inform all people who are committed to ensemble music education for youth empowerment and social change.

An Operatic Message from Our Children: Save the Planet!

07-06-2022

The challenges of climatic changes, the destiny of our planet, the possibility for new generations to take their future in their hands—these very big ideas inspired my colleague Magali Thomas and me to write a new opera for young people.

Finding Their Voice: OrKidstra’s KidComposers

07-06-2022

When a dedicated youth music organization starts brainstorming, the sky opens with possibilities. Such was the lead-up to the creation of KidComposers, a natural extension of OrKidstra’s online Improv Explorers program.

GLP Imagined Community Concert: Reunion

06-15-2022

During our conversations with them, CMW staff shared that they sometimes struggle to engage families to attend concerts. In considering how best to bring together all CMW families, students, and faculty, we came up with “Reunion,” an imagined concert designed to help CMW unite and celebrate their community’s many cultures and people.

Black Orchestral Network Launches

06-15-2022

Last month saw the launch of the Black Orchestral Network (BON), a collective dedicated to creating an inclusive and equitable orchestral field for Black musicians across the U.S.

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

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.

A Special Partnership Generates a Regional Residency

06-01-2022

Music students from many regions, coming together across distances to spend days of intensive music-making together—around the world, this has long been one of El Sistema’s most famous and valued traditions. For the past two pandemic years, that tradition has been largely shut down.

But it’s beginning to come to life again.

In Belgrade, a Specific Solution to a Complex Problem

06-01-2022

Through a collaborative “Orchestra and Choir of Hope,” children from Branko Pešić get to perform with peers from two music schools with whom MAP cooperates. But Music of Hope leaders realized the students had multiple needs—they were hungry, both emotionally and literally.

GLP Imagined Community Concert: We Are the Change

05-18-2022

Our group was inspired to see the singers shine while performing for their families and communities and saw an opportunity to celebrate their empowered selves in our imagined participatory concert, “We Are the Change.” Based on the lyric poetry book Change Sings by inaugural National Youth Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman, the concert melds aspects of choral music and teaching artistry to create an engaging, out-of-the-box community experience.

GLP Imagined Community Concert: ‘Let It Be’ Mantras

04-20-2022

Ian’s favorite song was The Beatles’ “Let It Be,” which he regularly played alongside MVM participants. In the wake of his passing, the song became a source of connective tissue for the MVM community. For Ian, “Let It Be” was a message of hope; we wondered what three-word mantras would resonate with MVM’s young people.

Intergenerational Learning through Songwriting

04-06-2022

During my graduate studies at the Longy School of Music at Bard College, I studied intergenerational learning—that is, how both young people and adults learn. I discovered that despite the generational and cultural divides between Gen Z-ers, baby boomers, and millennials, there were more similarities than differences. I wondered how I could foster authentic connections in an intergenerational space where everyone learns more about one another.

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