April 2020

 
The Ensemble seeks to connect and inform all people who are committed to ensemble music education for youth empowerment and social change.
 
The Ensemble Newsletter

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News & Resources

Professional Development Clock Hours from NAfME

04-07-2020

Free professional development clock hours have been made available by the National Association for Music Education in response to the unprecedented cancelations of conferences and shift to online teaching. These resources, including ten webinars from NAfME Academy, 14 articles from Music Educator Journal, and Live Professional Learning Community webinar series, are peer-reviewed and specifically developed for and by music educators.

Welcome Videos Provide Sense of Familiarity for Students at WHIN Music Community Charter School

04-07-2020

A sense of safety and connectedness is the foundation of successful student learning, but natural disasters can cause turmoil. The impacts of the current pandemic have upended all our familiar routines and rituals, so we must re-dedicate ourselves to these practices. New York City’s WHIN Music Community Charter School cleverly addresses the issues of familiarity and routine for their disrupted students in a video that welcomes them to their online classes.

Peace First’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants Open

04-07-2020

Have you heard good ideas from your students or young colleagues about ways they might engage in music-making with other isolated students? Now, there just might be a grant to support that idea for young people ages 13-25: Peace First’s COVID-19 Rapid Response Grants. Apply here.

Pro Bono Arts Management Consulting from the DeVos Institute

04-07-2020

Could your program use some high-powered consulting advice? Recognizing that U.S. arts organizations (including Sistema programs) will be hard hit economically by the current health crisis, the DeVos Institute of Arts Management at the University of Maryland (one of the nation’s leading training and consulting organizations) offers pro bono hourlong consultations for any U.S.-based non-profit arts or culture organization between March and June 2020. Contact them here.

The Awesome Music Project of Canada Raises Funds to Address Mental Health Issues

04-07-2020

The Canadian Awesome Music Project, which includes teaching artists in Sistema New Brunswick, raises funds to address mental health issues. They have created “The Awesome Music Project Canada: Songs of Hope and Happiness,” a compilation of intimate stories by Canadians from all walks of life and a tribute to the power of music to change lives. You can support their efforts here.

Music Haven Receives State Funding in Response to Community Outcry

04-07-2020

Since 2007, Music Haven, in New Haven, CT, has delivered strong learning outcomes through programs that primarily serve families living below the federal poverty level, 91% of whom are students of color. In achieving a 100% college matriculation rate, Music Haven built lasting community loyalty that led to it receiving $100,000 directly from state funds—very unusual in the U.S. However, without explanation, their state funding was eliminated from the adjusted 2021 state budget, a devastating blow. Read about what happened next. (Spoiler: the funding made it back into the budget. Community commitment made all the difference!)

Early Years Music in Sistema Scotland

Jen Nicholson, Curriculum Leader Early Years, Sistema Scotland

04-02-2020

Winnicott’s famous quote captures the importance of relationship to every individual. He expands to describe the dependency of children on their caregivers not only for basic needs, but also for emotional “holding.”

Radical Inclusion and Friendship in Arohanui Strings

Alison Eldredge, Director, Arohanui Strings, (Sistema Hutt Valley/ Wellington, New Zealand)

04-02-2020

I moved to New Zealand in 2010, when my husband began a job with the NZ Symphony Orchestra. After years of playing violin professionally, Suzuki and Waldorf/Steiner teaching, and raising our two daughters, I found myself for the first time in decades with time and space to contemplate going in a new direction.

U.S. Sistema Programs Respond to Pandemic

Eric Booth, co-founder of The Ensemble Newsletters

04-02-2020

In the U.S., Sistema programs shut down in early March—first one, then a few, and within a week, all of them. As safety issues were clear, there was little energy wasted on resisting the hard choice. All the predictable, wonderful energy that had been building toward culminating projects and special fundraising events was immediately redistributed into three basic concerns: money questions (Can we keep paying staff? Can we raise the money we need in other ways?), event questions (How do we provide a sense of celebration and culmination for the year’s work?), and student learning questions (How do we keep the learning going online?).

The Ubuntu Music Program: Strengthening Community through Music and Athletics

Collective submission from members of the Playing For Change Foundation

04-02-2020

The Playing For Change Foundation has been working in Rwanda since 2011, using music and sports as tools for positive change and education. Ubuntu is a Bantu word that means “humanity towards others”; the Ubuntu Philosophy is a humanist concept that could be summed up as “I am because we are,” and is based on the idea that there is a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity. This way of thinking inspired the name of our program in Rwanda: the Ubuntu Music Program.

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