Perspectives & Collective Action

As 2024 drew to a close, the Boston String Academy celebrated the 79th Session of the United Nations General Assembly with a performance at Carnegie Hall alongside Boston Conservatory’s Venus Quartet.

Young people have unprecedented access to media, which often leads to a reliance on popular opinions rather than the cultivation of their unique voices. I see this in the classroom when I ask students for their thoughts—they often hesitate, looking around for validation instead of trusting their instincts. This reluctance is disheartening. It highlights a pressing need within youth arts education: we must foster spaces for reflection and honest dialogue.

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.

The Lewis Prize for Music (TLPM) has supported our field over the past five years by granting significant awards to programs across the U.S. In addition, TLPM sometimes brings students from the programs they support into the organization’s leadership development projects.

TLPM recently brought two of these young leaders into conversation about the impact these professional experiences have had on their learning and their lives.

This past July, the warmth of the Portuguese summer and the backdrop of the Lisbon sea welcomed a diverse group of teachers and young musicians from social action music programs across more than ten countries. Amidst varied accents and curious glances, a shared energy became palpable—the excitement of face to face meetings among people who had been able to interact with one another only virtually during their four months of preparation. There was also the shared enthusiasm of people doing what they love most: teaching and making music together.

You won’t want to miss the September event of The Lewis Prize For Music’s Fall Town Hall Series, focusing on “Youth Organizing and Community Placemaking.”

As The Lewis Prize enters a new phase, we are taking the learnings from our grant process, field relationships, and research to create a platform for expanded investment in creative youth development. We’ve designed the Creating Abundance Collaborative, a cross-sector space where practitioners, young people, researchers, philanthropists, and policymakers come together to advance the field through shared learning and pooled resources.

It’s easy for us, as teaching artists, to believe that all humans can access creativity. As the leader of ArtistYear and a practicing teaching artist myself, I understand the inclination. Any notion suggesting otherwise seems to challenge fundamental beliefs about our purpose—if there are people who can’t access creativity, then a place exists where teaching artistry is rendered ineffective. With this line of thinking, however, some nuance in the conversation is lost.

I have worked in the humanitarian sector for almost 15 years, in both Jordan and Lebanon, which have the highest refugees per capita in the world. In that time, I’ve learned thousands of life stories: of people who lost their homes, their possessions, and their established lives; of traumatized children and departed loved ones; of extreme health crises, both mental and physical. Yet, despite the hardships they reveal, these stories have always been more about bravery, strength, resilience, faith, and love.