For one month, the Fellows in the El Sistema program at NEC immerse themselves in El Sistema programs and projects that they're interested in. I went to Baltimore for a week to observe and teach at OrchKids, traveled to Washington DC for a day to speak with leaders from NAFME, Arts Education Partnership, and Orchestra of the Americas, and then went home to New York to help out with the first tour of the Simon Bolivar Big Band Jazz.
After that, I worked for the rest of the time on a project to explore how non-profits with similar missions to El Sistema have been funded in the US, and which priorities are important to some major grantmakers who support arts and arts for social change programs.
Here is a short video I made about my time in Baltimore and with the Bolivars:
