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Free Webinar Series on Social-Emotional Learning for Teachers, Parents, and Advocates

09-15-2021

A recent survey conducted by the Save The Music Foundation shows that students are having a difficult time returning to the classroom. Responses from their partner teachers indicate that students are now dealing with increased stress (81%), anxiety (75%), depression (56%), and isolation and loneliness (56%). To help music educators and families support these students, Save The Music has produced a free webinar series on social and emotional learning (SEL). It is called “Student Empowerment through SEL in Music Education,” and it can be accessed here via their website. You must register in advance of every session. Each session features special guest speakers and focuses on a unique element of SEL, so check their calendar for the upcoming schedule.

Funding for Community-Minded Musicians

09-15-2021

The Sparkplug Foundation provides grants to start-up nonprofit organizations, or new projects of established nonprofits, that are addressing the fields of music, education, and community organizing in the U.S. or Palestine/Israel. In the Music category, Sparkplug supports emerging professional musicians in developing new work, sharing existing work with a wider community, bringing together musicians to collaborate, or facilitating new workshops that bring music to oppressed communities. The grant application process can be initiated on their website any time before October 11.

Three Resources from Carnegie Hall

09-15-2021

Carnegie Hall is known for its excellent professional development. If you’re looking for ways to improve and enliven your own teaching, you can explore their Great Music Teaching Framework, with selected videos from the Music Educators Workshops that model the seven foundations of great music teaching. Explore improvisation and movement games, conducting techniques, tips to create more symbiotic learning environment, strategies for approaching tricky texts, and more.

Also, some may be interested in Carnegie Hall’s early-learner rhythmic training videos.

Note that Carnegie Hall has just opened up applications for their 2022 national youth ensembles. Music-for-social-change program leaders in the U.S. should take a close look at NYO2 for their most motivated students. It is a free, life-changing intensive experience for youth ages 14–17, designed particularly for young people from communities underserved by and underrepresented in the classical orchestral field.

Google Ad Grants Available to Nonprofits in Selected Countries

09-15-2021

Google Ad Grants help nonprofits share their causes with the world. The program provides up to $10,000 per month of in-kind Google search advertising for nonprofits. These ads allow organizations to raise awareness, attract new donors, and recruit new volunteers. Applications are accepted from any organization registered as a charitable organization in an eligible country. There is no deadline to apply; visit the Google Ad Grants website to review the FAQs, which include a video detailing how to launch a successful ad grants campaign.

The Music behind Netflix’s South African Series JIVA!

09-15-2021

Netflix has a new show that might interest your students: JIVA!, a dance-focused drama series produced in South Africa. The website okayafrica has compiled a list of the songs behind the show’s impressive dance routines, showcasing South Africa’s rich musical culture for audiences who may not be familiar. If our kids are staring at their screens, we may as well sneak some music education, and some dance-irresistible music, into their programming.

Finding the Musical ‘Meeting Point’ Our Students Seek

Sergio Escalera, pianist; Cofounder, La Sociedad Boliviana de Música de Cámara; Global Leaders Program alumnus

09-01-2021

For the peoples of the Middle East, especially, this is a crucial time to question the hegemony of Western classical music and to reassert their own musical traditions. During the last five years, I’ve been able to observe the way this has played out in the historical regions of the Armenian Highlands and Mesopotamia, where both Armenian and Kurdish musical traditions—two traditions with a common root—are indigenous.

The Life of Jorge Peña Hen, Part II: A Different Kind of Human Being

Lautaro Rojas Flores, Faculty (Retired), Escuela Experimental de Música Jorge Peña Hen, Universidad de La Serena

09-01-2021

A young man of only 17, Jorge Peña Hen was already reflecting on serious issues in 1945. In particular, the Composition and Orchestral Conducting student at the National Conservatory of Music in Santiago (Chile) had been influenced by radical new ideas about decolonizing education, and he was taking his new vision to the provinces.

Diversity Corridors: Collaborative Practices for Community in Africa

Levi Wataka, Musical Director, National Youth Orchestra of Kenya

09-01-2021

The survival needs of underserved populations in rural areas and settlements across African cities, where basic sustenance overrides concepts of heritage, identity, and culture, have led many to interrogate the arts’ role in building social foundations for community.

Nevertheless, many community-based instrumental music programs have been founded to preserve those very foundations. Though these programs tend to work in isolation, there is much to be gained from creating corridors among them in Africa.

Centering Culturally Responsive Professional Development in a Year of Unknowns

Karen Cueva, Assistant Director, Learning and Engagement Programs, Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute

09-01-2021

In a chronically underfunded field where part-time employment is the norm, investing in professional development often feels like a bold aspiration—an item near the bottom of a strategic plan, rather than a lived reality for teaching artists. Carnegie Hall’s PlayUSA is an attempt to address that void.

Emergency Workers Relieve Stress by Making Music

Jill Shevlin, Trustee, Music for All

09-01-2021

In the U.K. organization Mind’s most recent Blue Light Report, 69% of emergency responders shared that their mental health has deteriorated as a result of the pandemic; ambulance staff were the likeliest to say this, at 77%. Additionally, 87% of respondents said not being able to see friends or family during the pandemic has impacted on their mental health, while 69% said that passing coronavirus to their loved ones is a significant worry or concern. Mind also found that emergency workers held strong concerns about burnout and PTSD. Clearly, there is a demand among ES workers for tailored, preventative support that empowers them to seek and receive help.

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