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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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Lessons in Listening

Yuki Numata Resnick, Cofounder and Executive Director, Buffalo String Works

08-05-2020

Buffalo Public School #45 is the go-to public school for newly arrived refugees in Buffalo, NY. Speaking dozens of different languages and dialects, many of the school’s students are displaced from countries across the world. As we sat down in front of them, we introduced ourselves, our instruments, and the music we were about to play. Our audience was quiet, even distant. But as we placed our bows on our strings and the first notes emerged, everything changed.

Editorial: August 2020

Katie Wyatt, President and CEO, El Sistema USA

08-04-2020

For me, as for many, the pandemic has been a time of Janus-like reflection—simultaneously looking back and making plans for the future. I’ve been reflecting about the early years of the El Sistema movement in the United States: we were driven by Maestro Abreu winning the 2009 TED Prize, the fiery Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra, the appointment of Gustavo Dudamel to the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the growing media attention on El Sistema. We had that fire-in-the-belly impetus to found new organizations across the country, with dreams of a new wave of music education.

Centering Students in Their Own Mythologies

Kwame Scruggs, Founder and Executive Director of Alchemy, Akron, OH; Association of Teaching Artists Award Winner 2020

08-04-2020

Myth and drums are a potent combination. I first encountered the use of drums in men’s circles when I attended a workshop for a rites of passage group led by Dr. Kwa David Whittaker—Nana Kwa, one of my eventual mentors. After I witnessed him playing the djembe drum while relating a powerful story to the group, I knew I wanted to find a way to incorporate the drum into my own work. Before long, I was down in the basement of my house, alone, practicing drumming while reciting mythological stories.

The Importance of Mission Statements

Myka Miller, MM, MBA; Chief Executive Officer, Harmony Project, Los Angeles, CA; Board Member, El Sistema USA

07-07-2020

How do you describe your program to funders? What stories do you tell, and how do they affect your students? These were some of the questions explored in a session called “How We Talk about Our Programs: The Stories We Tell Ourselves,” that I facilitated alongside Dr. Tia Harvey of Accent Pontiac at the El Sistema USA Symposium in January 2020.

Decolonizing the Music Room

07-07-2020

Decolonizing the Music Room is a non-profit organization aiming to use research, training, and discourse to help music educators center the voices and experiences of Black, Brown, and Indigenous people to challenge European and White American practices. Resources include suggested reading, podcasts, firsthand accounts from other music educators, video blogs, and more. Join this ongoing process of learning, reflection, and growth.

Sangeet4All: Celebrating Multiple Musical Cultures

Saskia Rao-de Hass, creator of the Indian cello; Founder of Sangeet4All, India’s music curriculum for young learners

07-01-2020

Sangeet4All is a music education program that connects children in India with Indian classical and folk music in a fun and meaningful way. I started the program with my husband, Shubhendra Rao, in 2014; our first students were 15 girls in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Delhi. The Sangeet4All program now runs in 18 schools in the regions of NCR, Gujarat, and Punjab.

Showing Up in Crisis Times

Christopher Schroeder, Executive Director, Boston Music Project (Formerly Josiah Quincy Orchestra Program), Boston, MA

06-02-2020

The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged our communities in unimaginable ways. It has exposed great inequities in our society, tested the financial stability of our organizations, and forced programs to rapidly explore new methods of connectivity, storytelling, and fundraising. On the other hand, it has also offered opportunities for programs to demonstrate their resilience. As many educators say, it’s better to show than tell. Right now, our students are watching how we show up for them in times of crisis.

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.

Sharing Our Work during COVID-19

Robert Saunders, Music Education Director, Miami Music Project, FL

06-02-2020

As learning programs of every kind and in every part of the world find ways to respond to the global health crisis, El Sistema-inspired programs are doing what we encourage our students to do: we are learning from one another. At Miami Music Project, we quickly reached out to El Sistema USA about creating resources for other El Sistema-inspired programs. We were excited to learn that Monique Van Willingh, Director of the Masters of Arts in Teaching (MAT) program at Longy School of Music at Bard College, was already working to develop a webinar series with the goal of sharing field experiences and best practices of organizations that are successfully transitioning to digital programming. Since summer camp activities are the immediate concern for many El Sistema-inspired programs around North America, El Sistema USA President Katie Wyatt reached out to several program leaders to begin sharing their experiences and innovations in this area.

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.

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