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Celebrating the Potential of Our Vulnerable Communities at M-LISADA

Bosco Segawa, Founder, M-LISADA Organization

07-07-2021

Music attracts and connects otherwise unreachable hearts. And for children from the streets, it has the ability to soothe souls, provide comfort, and offer hope for the future. At M-LISADA Organization (Music Life Skills And Destitution Alleviation), a Ugandan registered NGO in the heart of the Katwe slums on the outskirts of Kampala, we serve those children with music education that celebrates their possibilities.

Iberacademy: Human Development Based on Musical Excellence

Irene Littfack, Journalist, Iberacademy

07-07-2021

More than a decade ago, Colombian orchestra conductor Alejandro Posada founded the Iberoamerican Philharmonic Academy—Iberacademy—in Medellín with one purpose in mind: to provide young Latin American talent with opportunities for human development through musical education of excellence.

“A Place to Share What I Needed”: Finding Our Strengths at My Voice Music

Ian Mouser, Founder and Executive Director, My Voice Music

07-06-2021

The idea for My Voice Music started in 2007, when I brought my guitar into a residential mental health facility where I was a Treatment Counselor working with youth. One of the kids asked me to teach him to play guitar and sing a song in time for the talent show. There was only one catch: the show was two weeks away.

Staying Engaged with Guest Artists

Isaac Sinnett, Senior Associate Director of Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play education programs, and Christine Taylor Conda, Director of Ravinia’s Reach Teach Play education programs

07-06-2021

Raised hands, great questions, a new level of ensemble music-making, palpable excitement from our students—we’ve all experienced those unforgettable moments when our students are engaged and eager to do more after interacting with a guest artist or ensemble. A bonus for everyone, these encounters offer students a change of pace—a brief, beautiful moment of inspiration. When they’re over, we usually slip back into our regular routines, and those incredible moments become fleeting memories. But what if we could turn them into something more? What if those moments could have a lasting impact on our students’ ongoing learning?

Share Your Cleverest Program Design to Be Featured at SEYO SummerFest 2021

06-02-2021

The SEYO 2021 SummerFest is happening this July and will feature a World Ensemble Day on July 22. We will explore some of the coolest, cleverest, most unusual and interesting projects or practices of Sistema-inspired programs around the world. Are you particularly proud of something your program does which others likely don’t do? It could be anything—a surprising and effective way that you present music, raise funds, engage students, inspire teachers, or make connections. Who knows what clever ideas are working out there?

Let us know, so we can share your work at this global conference! It doesn’t need to be a big feature—it could be a musical warmup you’ve invented, or something you do at rehearsals, or a way you communicate with parents.

The UKUSA Arts Programme: Four Decades of Transformation in South Africa

Debbie Mari, Lecturer, School of Arts, University of KwaZulu-Natal; Project Manager, UKUSA Arts Programme

06-02-2021

As in many countries the world over, the immediate future of music education in South Africa is uncertain. Funding priorities are moving away from the arts, a universal problem brought into sharp focus by the COVID-19 pandemic. South Africa exemplifies this dilemma. It is a nation of diverse people, cultural practices, and musical traditions, with a rich history of community music-making. But its economic disparities have made formal music education almost inaccessible beyond private education or community arts projects and programs; it needs new approaches to teaching, learning, and sharing that properly acknowledge and utilize this diversity. Fortunately, there are some precedents for such new approaches—prominent among them, the UKUSA Arts Programme, previously housed at the University of Natal (UN).

Mitrovica Rock School: The Art of Listening and Responding

Wendy Hassler-Forest, Strategic Development Manager, Musicians Without Borders

06-02-2021

Mitrovica, a miner’s town in Northern Kosovo, has been called Europe’s most divided city. Since the end of the Kosovo War in 1999, the river that runs through the city has become a de facto border between the minority Serb community in the North and the majority Albanian community in the South.

Looking beyond Music: Empowering Students to Ignite Change at Project 440

Elena LeVan, Administrative Assistant, Project 440

06-02-2021

The first note an audience hears at any symphonic concert comes in at 440 Hz—the pitch A. Typically, the oboe plays this first pitch, followed by the rest of the orchestra as the tuning routine begins. Whether performing Bach concerto or Vivaldi suite, they will perform in tune, thanks to that first tuning pitch.

Venezuelan Musicians in Crisis Recreate Musical Identity across the World

Rachel O’Connor, DMA Candidate, The Peabody Institute; Hornist, American Youth Symphony

06-02-2021

Across the world, members of the music for social change movement hold a special connection to Venezuela, and many feel great concern for the astoundingly difficult circumstances its people have faced in recent years. The ongoing crisis remains massively under-reported in the media and under-funded by the global community. Brookings Institution calls this “the largest and most under-funded refugee crisis in modern history”; Venezuela is on track to overtake Syria as the country with the most displaced people, with 5.4 million and counting. Meanwhile, the international community has committed significantly less funding to Venezuelans. Four years into the Syrian crisis, $7.4 billion in international aid ($1,500 per refugee) had been amassed, while at a similar point in Venezuela’s crisis, only $580 million has been spent ($125 per person).

The Grand Canyon Music Festival’s Native American Composer Apprentice Project

Clare Hoffman, Founder and Artistic Director, Grand Canyon Music Festival

06-01-2021

In 1983, just a few years out of music conservatory, my husband Robert Bonfiglio and I embarked on a vacation to the American Southwest. We started our trip at the Grand Canyon, with our instruments in our backpacks, a rim-to-rim-to-rim four-day hike through the canyon. The first evening, with my aching feet soaking in the cold waters of the Colorado River, I took out my flute and played. The following morning, we packed up and headed up the floor of the canyon to Cottonwood campground, where I found a washed-out tree trunk to rest under and again played my flute. A park ranger followed the sound of the flute and, when he found us, invited us to the ranger’s hut that evening to play a concert.

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