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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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A New Zealand “Pōwhiri” for Teaching Artistry

Eric Booth, Co-Founder, The Ensemble; Co-Founder, ITAC

11-06-2024

A good conference asks an important question; a great conference launches an answering process that reaches beyond its few days. In September, ITAC7, the Seventh International Teaching Artist Conference, brought hundreds of teaching artists from around the world to Auckland, New Zealand, to address the question of what the global field can learn from Indigenous wisdom about art and community.

EDITORIAL
Universal Design for Learning: A Natural Fit for El Sistema-inspired Programs

Graciela Briceno, teaching artist and Foreign Service Officer, Accra, Ghana

10-02-2024

Imagine that you are walking up a staircase that leads to a school entrance, and you notice a sign that says, “ramp located at the back door.” Okay, so the sign and the ramp make the building technically accessible—but a person who can’t use stairs has to go all the way to the back of the building, locate the ramp, and hope that the door is open.

What if, instead of a staircase in front and a separate ramp in back, the architect had created a walkway that incorporates stairs and ramps all in one place?

This is the foundational metaphor of Universal Design for Learning, or UDL.

Finding Common Ground through Curriculum Design

Brian Bersh, Music Department Head, Germantown Friends School, Philadelphia, PA; Cohort Member, Global Leaders Program 2022

11-02-2022

Too often, curriculum design is reserved for a few administrators or lead teachers, even though it is integral to understanding and supporting musicianship development. But this process has the potential to unlock incredible opportunities for collaboration in our field, unifying stakeholders by giving everyone an equal voice in the conversation.

Relationships, the Bedrock of Community Art

Csaba Manyai, Impact Architect and Curator, Community Arts Network

04-06-2022

Too long have we seen ourselves and the world—almost unconsciously—through the metaphor of an elaborate, sophisticated machine. We do this to gain a sense of efficiency and control, and the results have been powerful, leading to remarkable achievements over the past few centuries. But this framework has come at a cost, undermining the more organic qualities and properties of who we are and what makes us healthy, happy, productive, and connected—those things “not measured in GDP,” as Robert F. Kennedy famously pointed out.

From Musicambia: Lessons from Teaching Music in Prisons

Nathan Schram, Founder and Artistic Director, Musicambia

01-05-2022

Teaching music in prisons is about doing the most with the resources you have. And everywhere we teach, we learn something new from our collaborating musicians; in many ways, we learn as much from our experiences as our students do. In the spirit of reflection and new beginnings, I want to share a few of the lessons that have shaped our work over the past seven years.

In Times of Conflict, Music Is Its Own Language

Andreas Knapp, Codirector, HANGARMUSIK

10-06-2021

Music is a shared language—and, as we all know, children learn languages easily. Their innate linguistic capabilities enable them, with all their different rhythms and tonalities, to learn simply by listening, absorbing, and imitating. Most important, they don’t make judgments about which language is more important than another.

Playlist: 2021 Favorites from the World Ensemble Ambassadors

10-06-2021

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The Importance of Contextualized and Conflict-Sensitive Sistema Programs

Graciela Briceno, Foreign Service Education Officer, U.S. Agency for International Development; Founder, Boston Music Project

07-07-2021

As I listened to the episode, I had a sudden crisis of conscience: had I done the same thing in starting a Sistema-inspired classical music program within a Boston public school? Given the principal’s enthusiasm, and the fact that at the time there was no music or visual arts programming, I eagerly launched the program without questioning what was best for the community. Was the money we were raising for the orchestra program being put to its best use at this school?

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?

Suggested Reading: We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom

06-01-2021

If you attended YOLA’s National Symposium in 2019, you won’t forget Dr. Bettina Love’s stirring keynote. Love is the Founder of the Abolitionist Teaching Network; her new book, We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom, delves into the ways in which the American education system actually makes profits on the suffering of children of color.

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