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Redefining a Residency: Reflections on Our COVID Year Collaboration

Jee-Hoon Krska, Founder and Executive Director, Keys 2 Success, and Joanna Borowski, Director of Education, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

10-05-2021

We decided to start with a small idea: to have one of the musicians in the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra (NJSO) join the advanced piano students in our program for a few Zoom sessions. Our thinking was that it could be almost like a masterclass, with the musician talking to the students about their experiences and coaching them on musical concepts. Our only concern was whether piano students would be able to relate to and make meaningful connections with a string player.

Collaborators in the Key of Change

Ken MacLeod, CEO/Founder, Sistema New Brunswick (Canada)

10-05-2021

Society’s highest goal for children in foster care seems to be keeping them out of trouble. But their social workers ache for more. In our conversations, they were drawn to the idea of offering children a path to rare and significant personal success, including new skills and disciplines that would change their future.

Expanding Into College-Level Music Courses for High School Students

Givonna Joseph, Make Music NOLA Instructor, Founder and Director of Opera Creole; Tucker Fuller, Make Music NOLA Instructor and Program Manager; and Laura Patterson, Make Music NOLA Executive Director

09-07-2021

Teaching music theory is tricky. College-level music theory courses tend to focus exclusively on either Western European classical conventions or on jazz. Rarely are these two models taught side by side, as they use different vocabularies to describe musical phenomena. Both models have their advantages, but both are limited. Make Music NOLA has been working for years to develop a curriculum that teaches both side by side.

Browsing the Digital Landscape for New Teaching Practices

David Freeman, Faculty, Media, Communications and Visual Arts, Pace University; National Advisory Council Member, Teaching Artist Guild

09-07-2021

While we have watched the country begin to reopen in recent months, the pandemic’s ever-changing impact on the educational landscape has not subsided. Arts education workers have faced unrelenting challenges in this ongoing moment of adaptation and innovation.

As a jazz musician and teaching artist, I experienced this firsthand. And I had no experience in any kind of teaching that didn’t involve music students in a room together. Fortunately, I found three online platforms for jazz education that offer a wealth of good teaching and learning opportunities, and I spent some time this year trying them out with student-colleagues.

Finding the Musical ‘Meeting Point’ Our Students Seek

Sergio Escalera, pianist; Cofounder, La Sociedad Boliviana de Música de Cámara; Global Leaders Program alumnus

09-01-2021

For the peoples of the Middle East, especially, this is a crucial time to question the hegemony of Western classical music and to reassert their own musical traditions. During the last five years, I’ve been able to observe the way this has played out in the historical regions of the Armenian Highlands and Mesopotamia, where both Armenian and Kurdish musical traditions—two traditions with a common root—are indigenous.

The Life of Jorge Peña Hen, Part II: A Different Kind of Human Being

Lautaro Rojas Flores, Faculty (Retired), Escuela Experimental de Música Jorge Peña Hen, Universidad de La Serena

09-01-2021

A young man of only 17, Jorge Peña Hen was already reflecting on serious issues in 1945. In particular, the Composition and Orchestral Conducting student at the National Conservatory of Music in Santiago (Chile) had been influenced by radical new ideas about decolonizing education, and he was taking his new vision to the provinces.

Centering Culturally Responsive Professional Development in a Year of Unknowns

Karen Cueva, Assistant Director, Learning and Engagement Programs, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute

09-01-2021

In a chronically underfunded field where part-time employment is the norm, investing in professional development often feels like a bold aspiration—an item near the bottom of a strategic plan, rather than a lived reality for teaching artists. Carnegie Hall’s PlayUSA is an attempt to address that void.

Emergency Workers Relieve Stress by Making Music

Jill Shevlin, Trustee, Music for All

09-01-2021

In the U.K. organization Mind’s most recent Blue Light Report, 69% of emergency responders shared that their mental health has deteriorated as a result of the pandemic; ambulance staff were the likeliest to say this, at 77%. Additionally, 87% of respondents said not being able to see friends or family during the pandemic has impacted on their mental health, while 69% said that passing coronavirus to their loved ones is a significant worry or concern. Mind also found that emergency workers held strong concerns about burnout and PTSD. Clearly, there is a demand among ES workers for tailored, preventative support that empowers them to seek and receive help.

Growing Seeds in Tetuán

Carlos Fontán, Orchestral Area Coordinator, Acción por la Música Foundation; Alumnus, Global Leaders Program

08-04-2021

Turina Youth Orchestra of Acción por la Música Foundation is a clear example of how values of the human spirit can be developed through music. It is here that, through orchestral rehearsals, resilience, trust, social justice, kindness, beauty, and compassion grow.

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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