Tricia Tunstall

 
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

Regions

Africa

Asia/Oceania

Europe

Latin America

North America

Topics

Teaching & Learning

Program Design

Student Voice & Leadership

Community Building

Collaborations

Funding & Support

Perspectives & Collective Action

News & Resources

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

11-01-2018

More than the sum of our parts. We tell our students that’s what an orchestra is. Violins plus clarinets, trombones plus marimbas plus cellos—all those disparate musical essences combined create something that is unimaginable when hearing each of them separately. The whole is of a different order.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

10-01-2018

Do you think of yourself as a teaching artist? Many teachers in the global Sistema use that term to describe what they do. Sometimes, though, there can be a lack of clarity about what it means – and a lack of awareness that there is, in fact, a powerful and growing global movement for Teaching Artistry, just as there is for El Sistema.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

09-01-2018

When does the percussion player in a symphony orchestra ever stand right by the principal clarinetist’s shoulder?

The answer: when the Sistema Europe Youth Orchestra (SEYO) is rehearsing Danzon Number 2, by Arturo Marquez – which begins in a sensuous hush, with a solo clarinet melody over woodblock beats. “It’s just a few of you starting this beautiful piece, “ said Maestro Sascha Goetzel, who was leading the rehearsal. “So let’s put you physically together, so that you can play fully together.”

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

08-01-2018

We’re ten years old!

2008 saw the beginning of most of our oldest programs, including OrchKids in Baltimore, the Harmony Program in New York City, and Orchestrating Diversity in St. Lous. YOLA began in 2007…but its first rehearsal with Gustavo Dudamel was in 2008. So I think we’re safe to consider this year the tenth anniversary of our emergence as a national movement.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

07-01-2018

“Cell phones and social media.”

That was the succinct answer I got from a Sistema teacher I spoke with recently, when I asked her why she said her job is getting harder, not easier. She added, “And this year, it’s really ramped up; the problem is worse than it’s ever been.”

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

06-01-2018

A recent article in the academic journal JAMA Pediatrics, on the subject of teaching students self-regulation, bears the subtitle “A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis” – a phrase so densely academic that I almost stopped reading right there. But I’m glad I didn’t. There’s some important good news here for Sistema programs.

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

05-01-2018

In this issue, we are taking the unprecedented (for us) step of adding a third page. We decided that a third page was necessary to honor and to mourn Draylen Mason, a young bass player and student leader in the Austin Soundwaves program who was killed last month. We also decided that the Action of the Month should be a symbolic action of mourning by all programs.

From the Editors

Tricia Tunstall

04-01-2018

On March 24th, as I worked on putting this issue together, I listened to a live stream of the rally in Washington, D.C. I heard young person after young person speaking truth to power about their lived experiences of gun violence. And another voice was suddenly present in my head, more seasoned but still resonating with the urgent aspiration of the young people’s voices. “Put a violin in the hands of a child,” said that voice, “and the child will not pick up a gun.”

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

03-01-2018

Many of us know by heart this quote from José Antonio Abreu’s televised TED talk in 2009: “Orchestra and chorus are much more than artistic structures; they are schools of social life, because to play and sing together means to intimately coexist toward perfection and excellence.”

From the Editor

Tricia Tunstall

02-01-2018

Every gathering of music educators gets amped up when, at long last, the kids play. The ESUSA symposium last weekend was no exception. After two days of talks and workshops, we gathered in a concert hall to hear actual students – from Durham’s Kidznotes, Baltimore’s OrchKids, and Chicago’s CHIMOP – actually make music.

Share

ABOUT US MASTHEAD THE AMBASSADORS THE ARCHIVES SUBSCRIBE CONTACT
© Copyright 2022 Ensemble News