Artistas docentes

Last weekend, in the U.S. city of Providence, Rhode Island, the renowned pianist Emanuel Ax visited Community MusicWorks for a pair of concerts in collaboration with our students and our professional ensemble in residence. Manny’s visit helped to celebrate our CMW Center, which was only a dream when he first came in 2017.

During Manny’s first visit, one concert took place in a neighborhood taqueria, and another on the basketball court of a nearby community center. In many ways, the concerts last weekend marked the new chapter we find ourselves in, welcoming children, families, musicians, and special guest artists into our purpose-built center.

Imagine choosing—on purpose—to stop. To give yourself a moment of attention and ask, without judgment, a simple question: “Why do I do this work?” It’s a small exercise of meditation and self-awareness that we rarely find time for in our noisy daily routine. And yet, in that brief pause, something can appear: a spark that feeds the question, gives it space, and makes it louder.

For me, Fire Up! 2025 in Athens—a four-day teaching artist residency led by the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM)—was that spark. 

“What’s the biggest thing keeping you up at night, as a leader or as a teaching artist?”

When Nikoletta Polydorou, founder of Sistema Cyprus, recently posed this question to music-for-social-action leaders and teaching artists across different countries and contexts, one concern surfaced repeatedly: when a program’s purpose isn’t clear, and collectively owned, the learning is less focused and effective.

I’d been missing the presence and perspective of young people in these gatherings dedicated to arts education, young people’s wellbeing, and community health through the arts. When young people were present, it was most often as performers, and occasionally as panelists alongside adults.

Throughout these events, I had been wondering, “How is it that we continue to position young people as objects of conversation, and not the subject?”

That first day, I felt like a teenager: somewhat defiant, hesitant to initiate, eager to observe, even mistrusting…but also wanting to chat, meet people, laugh, and share.

AIM knew what they were doing. We’d found ourselves on the other side of the classroom, sitting in the student chair. And in experimenting with ways to develop our own community and agency—our capacity for action—as educators, we found ourselves viewing students’ needs with new empathy.

How can I contribute to making something that’s already great even better?

That was the question I asked myself when I took on the challenge of carrying out the first Academy for Impact Through Music (AIM) Chispa, in Caracas, Venezuela, in December 2024.

The majority of the population is in Portland, at the northern border, with most everybody else residing along the “I5 Corridor”—Interstate 5, a major north-south highway that runs from Portland to California. BRAVO serves a region at the very northern tip of Portland; JOY serves students in Yamhill County. North Portland is a diverse blue-collar area with shipyards, warehouses, and port terminals; Yamhill County is the heart of Oregon’s famed Willamette Valley, a region known best for its fabulous wineries. But while the county boasts fancy vineyards and tasting rooms, it is also filled with farms and the hardworking farmhands and families.

Just 46 miles apart, our landscapes could not be more different. And yet the work we do could not be more aligned.

Fire Up – The Field is a free five-month program from the Academy for Impact through Music (AIM) in collaboration with LA Phil’s Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (YOLA) and its National Accelerator program.

La enseñanza artística es el gigante dormido del cambio social. 

Y ese gigante está despertando. Al menos eso es lo que afirmo, en mi incesante defensa del ámbito mundial. 

En el mundo de la educación artística, a menudo hablamos de la importancia de crear experiencias atractivas y transformadoras para los jóvenes. Sin embargo, el reto consiste en garantizar que estas experiencias conduzcan a un cambio positivo duradero. ¿Cómo pueden los artistas docentes no sólo fomentar la creatividad, sino también ayudar a los alumnos a crecer emocional y socialmente? La respuesta puede estar en la psicología positiva, un campo dedicado a mejorar el bienestar y el potencial humanos.