February 2021

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

Arts and Disabilities: Service-Learning in Trinidad and Tobago

02-03-2021

The first service-learning course I taught at the University of Trinidad and Tobago (UTT) Academy for the Performing Arts (APA) was a Residency in Community Arts. I chose to partner with the Consortium of Disabilities Organization (CODO) to offer my students a mentored residency working with students with disabilities. As I don’t have a background in special education, I decided to collaborate with a colleague from the University of the West Indies, music therapist Jean Raabe, to run an intensive workshop before the semester and join me in mentoring students on the project.

Global Bonding through the Arts: The Latin American Art for Social Transformation Network

02-03-2021

The idea that arts and arts education can propel social transformation is emerging as a crucial force in every part of the world. And yet the programs devoted to this idea are often small, underfunded, and local in scope. To create a genuinely powerful movement, we need greater interconnection. A good first step in the process of worldwide connection is the forging of regional, intra-continental networks.

“Música para Respirar 24/7”: Bolivian Musicians Mobilize during Pandemic Crisis

02-03-2021

As I finish the now-common hour-long Zoom conference and sit still on my piano bench, I know that the image of my last audience will hover atop my most precious musical memories for a long time. They are a family based in Catalunya who recently lost one of their children to COVID-19. Now, quarantined at home due to strict local measures to fight the pandemic, they became my listeners as I played for them some of their deceased child’s favorite music—an online concert of remembrance.

2021: A New Chapter in Our Work Begins

02-03-2021

Does the phrase “international economic development” put you in mind of high-powered farm equipment and global trade policies? Think again—it may also refer to community-centered ensemble music education.

The Learning behind NEO-Learning

02-03-2021

In the semi-remote town of Roebourne in the Pilbara region of the Western Australian Desert, the lack of attainment of Aboriginal young people in the Western education system does not reflect their place-based cultural literacies, which completely outstrip their city-based counterparts from Australia’s most successful schools, suburbs, and socio-economic cultures. They are so advanced and so advantaged in many Indigenous knowledge banks—over which their families and Elders are custodians—that they revel, often unknowingly (or the knowing is suppressed) in a unique cultural advantage.

Bringing Jazz into the Mix in Orquestra Geração, Sistema Portugal

02-03-2021

The slogan of Orquestra Geração suggests something deeper than just playing music. The idea of touching lives (in Portuguese, “tocamos” means “we play/we touch”) asserts that we can positively transform the lives of children and young people through music, giving them a feeling of unlimited potential. What I didn’t know before teaching in this program was that the slogan would apply to me as well, and that my life would be so intensely touched and transformed.

El Sistema USA 2021 National Symposium & Seminario, February 15–19

02-02-2021

El Sistema USA invites the field to participate in its virtual Symposium and Seminario, February 15–19 from 12:00-3:00 PM EST.

Arts Workers Are Building a Labor Movement

02-02-2021

As the pandemic ravages many of the world’s major industries, a labor movement has developed within the arts sector.

The Lewis Prize for Music Announces Accelerator Awardees

02-02-2021

The 2021 Lewis Prize for Music Accelerator Awardees have been announced!

National Instrumentalist Mentoring and Advancement Network

02-02-2021

The National Instrumentalist Mentoring and Advancement Network (NIMAN) seeks to provide mentorship to promising young musicians of color in their formative, pre-college years.

Share

© Copyright 2022 Ensemble News