Arts Integration

 
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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EDITORIAL

A Space to Be: What One Classroom Taught Me about Art, Listening, and Inclusion

Giovanni Acquilino, 2025 Cohort Member, Global Leaders Institute

09-03-2025

This was a Mus-e session at a public primary school in Genova, Italy, in a room filled with light, nervous energy and about 20 children in motion. Some moved eagerly. Some hung back. Some followed Olivia Giovannini, the teaching artist leading the session. Others wandered in their own rhythm. Throughout it all, something subtle was happening: no one was being excluded. 

In Chicago, One Piece of Music Brings a City Together

Christine Taylor Conda, Executive Director of Education & Community Engagement, Ravinia Festival

06-04-2025

During the two magical years I spent in Jamaica as a child, my aunt would visit our house every Thursday evening after work. I remember our family spending dinnertime on orange pleather cushions, listening to broadcaster Leonie Forbes recite poetry on the radio as classical music played in the background. That dinner table is where I first fell in love with Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, and my family still talks about those Thursday nights we spent together.

Now, as Ravinia searches for inventive ways to reinvigorate interest in great musical works, those Thursday evenings come to mind.

Now, as Ravinia searches for inventive ways to reinvigorate interest in great musical works, those Thursday evenings come to mind.

Going Wild in New Brunswick

Larry Matthews, freelance writer with a long association with the New Brunswick Youth Orchestra

10-02-2024

The 1,500-strong audience in eastern Canada’s Moncton, New Brunswick erupted with a roar of approval. 

They were applauding the Sistema New Brunswick (Sistema NB) Children’s Orchestra, 110 musicians ages 9-14. But the performance of Tchaikovsky’s Marche Slave was only the warmup.

Soon, Dan Brown walked on stage. A world-famous author of bestselling novels such as The Da Vinci Code, Brown is also a composer. In 2020, he released a new work, Wild Symphony.

EDITORIAL
Methods Change, but Community Drives Our Field Forward

Christine Taylor Conda, Director, REACH*TEACH*PLAY Education Programs at Ravinia Festival

07-10-2024

If music is the universal language that brings people together, one would assume that this truth would hold for music education as well. But often, unfortunately, our field can pull people apart into seemingly oppositional camps. Over the course of my career as an arts education leader, I have witnessed many of these schisms, as well as their resolutions. I’d like to share three such dichotomies here.

What is music education for?

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