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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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Editorial: June 2020

Dennie Palmer Wolf, Researcher & Writer, WolfBrown, Cambridge, MA

06-02-2020

On my COVID-era daily hike, I found myself behind a woman on her cell phone. At first, I resented the noise; then I began to listen. “Hello, this is Ms. F., Leila’s violin teacher. How are you?…How is she? Does she know she has messages from her music class? We are doing song-writing, and she would be so good at it…Yes, I’d love to tell her.” I realized I was hearing a new kind of musical alliance between teachers, students, and families.

The Amani Project Partners with U.S. El Sistema Teachers-in-Training

Akhail Gopal and Ziyad Marcus, students in the MAT Program of Longy School of Music of Bard College

06-01-2020

As students in Longy School of Music’s El Sistema-inspired Masters of Arts in Teaching program, we have recently partnered with the Amani Project, a global nonprofit that uses music to serve youth in Sri Lanka, South Africa, Colombia, India, and many more countries around the world. We have found this collaboration to be a crucial reminder of perhaps the most important part of the El Sistema philosophy: social change. While technical excellence is prioritized in standard music pedagogy, El Sistema pushes us to bring musical competency and social justice into convergence. However, despite being in an El Sistema-inspired program, as music teachers we sometimes lose sight of ideals beyond music for music’s sake.

Transatlantic Professional Development Dialogues

05-05-2020

Have you ever been in collegial dialogue with colleagues in Europe? Join two hour-long discussions with El Sistema Sweden and Sistema Europe members in May. The first discussion is on Wednesday, May 6, 17:00 CEST/1:00pm EDT, focusing on Non-Digital Teaching Tools. What activities can we organize to warm up, to create energy, and to manage larger groups? The second discussion is on Wednesday May 20, 17:00 CEST/1:00pm EDT. The topic: Developing Groups and Repertoire. How can we best advance learning in groups, and what repertoire fits best? The discussions will be recorded and later made available on FB/IG. Register by email; you will receive a Zoom link.

24th Annual Sphinx Competition Opens

05-05-2020

The Sphinx Competition is a national competition offering young Black and Latinx classical string players a chance to compete under the guidance of an internationally renowned panel of judges, and to perform with and receive mentorship from established professional musicians. The repertoire requirements for the 24th Annual Sphinx Competition have been announced and applications have opened online.

The Lewis Prize Announces COVID-19 Community Response Fund

05-05-2020

The Lewis Prize recently announced their COVID-19 Community Response Fund, which will award $1 million in grants to support youth-serving music programs in their responsive and adaptive efforts during COVID-19. Here is a toolkit that includes more information about the fund. The application process for their annual Accelerator Award will begin as soon as the Community Response grants are awarded.

OrKidstra’s Youth Group Gives Students Space to Be Themselves

Andrew Gesing, Program Coordinator, OrKidstra, Ottawa, Canada

05-04-2020

“From pizza parties and Frisbee games to movie-watching and intense card matches, Fridays have been something to look even more forward to!” For Noah Linson-Hudson and almost 30 other OrKidstra students, Friday night Chamber Music and Youth Group has been the highlight of the week.

Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation Scholarship Program Opens

04-07-2020

The Latin GRAMMY Cultural Foundation Scholarship Program will award over 40 students attending a four-year college or university with scholarships from $10,000 to $25,000. Highly gifted musicians with an interest in Latin music genres are encouraged to apply. The deadline for consideration has been extended to April 13. Guidelines and application are available online.

The Archipelago Project

Armand Hall, Director of Education, Archipelago Project & Executive/Artistic Director, ROCmusic Collaborative; Daniel Trahey, Executive Director, Archipelago Project & Artistic Director, OrchKids

04-07-2020

The Archipelago Project’s objective is to empower student creativity and ownership by supplying musical knowledge, performance opportunities, and professional models to inspire the next generation of engaged musicians. For the past 15 years, Archipelago Project’s iterative process in curriculum design has resulted in our Musical Leadership Academy, a summer music camp focused on providing a diverse population of students and teaching artists with opportunities to create music together, learn when to lead and to listen, and thrive in the ensemble as a metaphor for community.

U.S. Sistema Programs Respond to Pandemic

Eric Booth, co-founder of The Ensemble Newsletters

04-02-2020

In the U.S., Sistema programs shut down in early March—first one, then a few, and within a week, all of them. As safety issues were clear, there was little energy wasted on resisting the hard choice. All the predictable, wonderful energy that had been building toward culminating projects and special fundraising events was immediately redistributed into three basic concerns: money questions (Can we keep paying staff? Can we raise the money we need in other ways?), event questions (How do we provide a sense of celebration and culmination for the year’s work?), and student learning questions (How do we keep the learning going online?).

Inside SphinxConnect 2020

Joanna Borowski, Director of Education, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra

03-04-2020

The Sphinx Organization is dedicated to transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts. The distinctive mission of Sphinx, within that context, is to address the underrepresentation of people of color in classical music at every level. Earlier this month, artists and arts leaders from all over the world converged on snowy Detroit—Sphinx’s home base—for a week of Sphinx signature programs, culminating in the fourth annual convening of the SphinxConnect conference.

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