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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 Special Partnership Generates a Regional Residency

The Ensemble Editorial Staff in conversation with Gabrielle Molina, Executive Director of Project Music; Founder of Teaching Artists International, Inc., and Garrett Mendez, Artistic Director of Project Music; Performance Arts Coordinator and Director of Instrumental Music at King School

06-01-2022

Music students from many regions, coming together across distances to spend days of intensive music-making together—around the world, this has long been one of El Sistema’s most famous and valued traditions. For the past two pandemic years, that tradition has been largely shut down.

But it’s beginning to come to life again.

Haitian Music Nation: Forging Pathways with BLUME Haiti

Janet Anthony, cello professor emerita, Lawrence University; Cofounder/Executive Director, BLUME Haiti

05-04-2022

Access to music education can be a potent antidote to despair for students and their teachers, families, and communities—one of the very few ways that people of vastly different social classes in Haiti can meet and interact as equals. As one of our scholarship participants stated, “music helps one become human.”

High School Interns Power East Lake Expression Engine

Leyda Juarez and Libby O’Neil with Axel Gonzalez, Andres Lopez, Yordy Lopez, Ronaldo Lopez Lorenzo, Araceli Reyonoso Reynoso, Floridalma Reynoso Reynoso, Jafeth Ruiz, and Elisa Velasquez

05-04-2022

At Expression Engine, we hire our students. Our students are our expansion plan, our growing capacity, and our future. We hire them as interns at 14, and, since they have already been participating in peer teaching, they are ready to step up. “The Engine” belongs to them, and they know it.

Lessons from Firebird Fellows

Kai Jack, Teaching Artist in Jerusalem, Israel/Palestine; Daniel Bermúdez Tamayo, member, mentor, and FAR Lab Leader, Iberacademy; and Francis Gagliardi, Director, Young Leaders Program, El Sistema Greece

05-04-2022

Ensemble editors spoke with three Firebirds about which teaching muscles have been most transformed, asking them to describe a specific change that they attribute to their experience in the Fellowship. Their responses were rich, thoughtful, and relevant in any classroom.

El Sistema School WHIN Expands Charter

04-20-2022

The U.S.’s WHIN Music Community Charter School, the country’s first school to be designed and founded on El Sistema principles, has renewed their charter for five years—expanding to a new middle school this September.

Inside the Piano Pedagogy Research Lab

Mikael Swirp, Research Associate, and Gilles Comeau, Founding Director, The Piano Pedagogy Research Laboratory at the University of Ottawa, Canada

04-06-2022

The Piano Lab does not look like your typical research laboratory. We want visitors to feel welcome and creative; as piano virtuoso Jon Kimura Parker said after visiting, “The first thing that hits you when you walk in is how inviting and colorful and friendly it is here.”

Instilling—and then Measuring—Confidence in Young Band Members

Amanda Holt, Strategic Information Specialist, Field Band Foundation

04-06-2022

Six thousand children participate in field bands across South Africa. These bands operate in rural and peri-urban communities that have little in the way of cultural, educational, or public health infrastructure. After-school activities are few. And yet, within these communities’ growing bands, people are growing, too.

Scenes from Skaramagas Refugee Camp

Léa Dao Van, Community Manager, El Sistema Greece

03-02-2022

Skaramagas was a place full of life and laughter, where people living under harsh conditions could still surprise you with generosity and optimism. Compared to many refugee camps, it was quite peaceful; I can’t count how many birthday parties, shared meals, and Arabic teas I attended while I worked there. And yet it was also unstable, an ecosystem of hardships and irritations—inevitable when many people of different cultures are forced to live together in a place they would rather not be. Against this backdrop, our students grew up.

At David’s Harp, Transparency Leads the Way—and Mentorship Follows

Brandon Steppe, Founder and Executive Director, The David’s Harp Foundation

02-02-2022

We adults are rarely transparent with young people. This is true for several reasons—we want to respect their boundaries; we need to maintain our authority in the room; we make ourselves malleable at the expense of honesty—but the biggest might be because it’s so easy to screw up.

Unpacking AIM’s Five Pillars of Practice

Fiona Cunningham, Director, Academy for Impact through Music (AIM)

02-02-2022

Our five Pillars of Practice not only articulate areas in which our Firebird Fellows commit to stretch with their students. They also underpin AIM’s approach to teacher training. Teachers need and deserve to participate in empowering experiential learning that informs how they support their students.

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