Community Building

RESEO, a European network dedicated to education, participation, and transformation through opera, music, and dance, is celebrating their 30th anniversary this year with a conference titled Making Noise: The Future that We Want.

One of the U.S. leaders in the Arts and Health movement, Tasha Golden has published “Four Big Ideas for Improving Health through the Arts,” a succinct, free e-book introducing the field of Arts and Health.  

In the beginning of the war on Gaza, I was displaced from my town of Beit Hanoun at 3 a.m. We were running, without shoes, without anything. We arrived in Jabalia, near Gaza City. I was not thinking about music; I was just running for a safe place.

The deadline for applications to attend the SIMM research seminar on participatory opera and music theatre has been extended to October 15.

Almost a hundred years ago, as construction began on the majestic Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Belgium, Director Marcel Cuvelier walked through the construction site with a dream. “I always thought of giving concerts for young people,” he later wrote. “When I walked like an insect in that huge frame that would become a concert hall, meeting rooms, offices, halls…I thought about an audience that is demanding, worthy of respect, living: young. I could already hear the shouts and the applause.” 

In Nancy Fraser’s framework, social justice requires both redistribution (economic resources) and recognition (cultural and symbolic status). Symbolic recognition is the validation of one’s identity, dignity, and self-worth within a broader socio-cultural context. And in 1990s Medellín—our time—young people faced material deprivation and severe symbolic misrecognition, viewed solely through the lens of urban violence, stigma, and invisibility. 

When the team at Community MusicWorks built the program’s new home, they brought their longtime luthier into their building.

Celebrating 15 years of the program, “Exploring Identity” is one of three recently released playlists featuring performances from Carnegie Hall’s Musical Connections program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.

The Global Extended Learning and Youth Development Association (GELYDA) has produced a special double issue of their magazine Extensions, themed entirely around Creative Youth Development (CYD).

One of our longest-standing members asked a question at a meeting this year that I still cannot answer well. He had rehearsed four or five pieces for our concert last December. On the afternoon itself, he participated in playing only one of them. He wanted to know how that had come about. He put his question to everyone in the room.