Cultural Preservation

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

EDITORIAL
Forty Years of Radical Inclusion: What We Can Learn from Lavender Light

05-07-2025

When you hear the phrase “social change through music,” what comes to mind? For many in our field, it means ensembles of student musicians learning to play and sing together.

Sometimes, though, it can mean people of all ages coming together and forging new communities of belonging through music. That’s the nature of my organization: Lavender Light, in New York City.

Collaboration Across Cultures—and Genres—in São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea-Bissau

02-05-2025

When the Rizoma Project launched in 2022 in São Tomé and Príncipe and Guinea-Bissau, I knew we were embarking on an ambitious journey. Our goal was clear: to establish social orchestras in communities with limited resources and significant social challenges. 

Journeying to New Communities through Cinema

05-01-2024

On May 14, 2017, we were on our way to Tinglayan, Kalinga in the Northern Philippines to screen films and teach filmmaking to young people—a five-hour drive from our base in Tuguegarao City. It had been five months and three film workshops since we’d founded the North Luzon Cinema Guild; Tinglayan Film Camp was our first collaboration with an Indigenous community.

While we were driving downhill on the foot of the Cordillera Mountains, the brake pads of our yellow 1999 Toyota Fun Cargo gave out. As we careened down the mountain, an old bus headed uphill came into view. Seeing it was going to be tight, we angled our car toward the side of the road…and kept rolling…

The Role of Music in Language Revitalization in Juneau, Alaska

03-05-2024

With fewer than 15 fluent Lingít speakers left in the world, there is an urgent initiative to revitalize and sustain this language of the native Alaskan people in this area. In 2021, JAMM began to partner with elders in the Lingít community, and also with a number of organizations—Sealaska Corporation, Sealaska Heritage Institute, Goldbelt Heritage Foundation, Douglas Indian Association, Juneau Arts and Humanities Council, and the University of Alaska Southeast—with the goal of integrating Lingít language, values, and culture into its established violin program.

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