Abreu Fellows Seminar with Eric Booth

September 6, 2011 “Training distinctive 'Habits of Mind.'”

Leading up to our seminar with Eric Booth, Erik Holmgren explained that our time with Booth would be spent asking questions. “Come with any questions you have, and Eric Booth will try to answer them.” I had been fortunate to work with Eric Booth in the past (check out his most recent blog on Columbia's Batuta program) and knew how much fun it is to dig into juicy questions with him, but I took this to mean, “Sure, we'll ask some questions, but they have other plans for us to fill up those five hours besides our just asking questions.”

I was wrong. In fact, the five hours flew by in an instant. Eric has that genius quality of being a master story-teller, and being able to answer the toughest questions in the most thoughtful and elegant way, without missing a beat. When we left, we marveled that we had spent so much time on discussing only a few questions (albeit, really big ones).

While I won't repeat everything here, some questions were asked that I would suspect are on the minds of everyone involved in the El Sistema community. One thing is true: we need to let go of pre-conceived notions about music, about music education, about Venezuela, and begin to shape our “habits of mind” in asking the kinds of questions that will drive our work forward. We're at the beginning of this journey together, and while we most likely can't answer these questions, our search for their answers will help us look with a more critical eye toward bringing the inspiration of El Sistema to children around the U.S.

The monster-sized questions:

• What learning is different from Western classical traditions of teaching and learning?

• What is social change? What does it mean to “save” children?

• What training is happening across the U.S for teachers in El Sistema-inspired programs?

• How might values of El Sistema disseminate into other fields and learning?

And the questions that – with some time and patience – we may be able to answer a little sooner:

• What is the verb we're using to describe what we're doing? Are we transplanting El Sistema in the U.S? Reinventing it? Adapting it? Interpreting it? (I personally like the last two. Interpreting is musical; perhaps we're interpreting the El Sistema symphony in a way that creatively engages our own musicians and communities.)

• How do we create functionality for many different programs with similar missions? (In other words, are there models outside the arts that have worked as a national network?)

• Check out the Stanford Social Innovation Review's "Collective Impact" article, in which a backbone support organization exists to support multiple stakeholders in a community for achieving one specific goal.

• What are the nay-sayers saying about El Sistema in the USA? (Check out Phyllis Freeman's blog to find out more.)

• How do we give others interested in the Abreu Fellows program an opportunity to learn more about what we're learning? (One answer: we write about as much as we can, and invite people to seminars when we can. The former Abreu Fellows have blogged extensively-- check out my links to their pages on this blog.)

• How can we best leverage artists in our communities who want to get involved?

• When does it make sense for El Sistema-inspired programs to collaborate? Or, what's the point of collaborating?

• To the last point: What intersects among El Sistema inspired programs are already happening?

• Seminario with Dan Trahey of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's ORCHKids
  

  • A seminario is a Venezuelan concept, kind of like a flash-mob for a musical project. Several kids come together for a short period of time and work on something together intensively. It could be a new piece, a new genre of music, or a workshop with a renowned musician.

  • In Baltimore, Dan Trahey hosted a seminario, in which children from YOURS project in Chicago, Soundscapes from Virginia, and Tune Up Philly from Philadelpha, came to Baltimore to work on several pieces with the OrchKids participants for one day and give a performance together.

  • It was a success!

    • About 157 children connected with one another from different states, and musically, they all gained an intensive experience in which they worked on Ode to Joy and William Tell Overture

    • Many parents and community members came to the final performance

  • This was perhaps the first example of El Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S joining forces for a common musical cause.

Phew! After re-reading this, I'm still wondering, “Why is it important to ask these questions?” Well, the answers will hopefully inform how we make the case for our programs, make decisions that will align with our missions, raise support and awareness for them, and allow us to provide our students and families with the best possible musical learning environments.

If you have thoughts on any of these questions, please comment away. Looking forward to hearing from you.

Some Inspiration from Youth Orchestra LA

The kids from YOLA got to play on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno! AND with Stevie Wonder at the Hollywood Bowl. Talk about transforming a kid's life through music...

Abreu Fellows: The Beginning (August, 2011)

August 29, 2011
 
A little background on the weather conditions leading up to the first day of the Abreu Fellows program: Last week, the news indicated that the East Coast would be hit with a hurricane so fierce, so vicious, as to threaten to storm us back to the Stone Age. Leading up to the weekend, stores were running out of milk and toilet paper as people stocked up. At least 370,000 people were ordered to evacuate their homes in New York City. The New York transportation system shut down for the first time in history. Ladies and gentlemen, this was an apocalypse we were talking about.

I had planned to leave for Boston on Sunday, after spending a day leisurely packing and enjoying a day at home in New York. No such luck. After flying back from Switzerland Friday night, I stayed up all night packing, then left on Saturday to catch the last bus leaving Port Authority before everything shut down. After 7 hours, I arrived in Boston and holed up at a friend's house to watch the storm pass.

And in Boston, that's really all it was: a storm.

At the orientation for new students at the New England Conservatory on Monday morning, President Tony Woodcock aptly expressed the beginning of our year, to the effect of “we'll always remember this class as the one that blew in with the storm.”

I'm not going to dwell too much on how that could or could not be an analogy for our journey in the Abreu Fellows program this year. But it did feel oddly appropriate to have weathered a storm as we left everything behind to delve into a program that explores music education as a vehicle for saving the lives of millions of children.

In our first meeting as a group (well, 4/5ths, as Aisha and José Luis got marooned in the Dominican Republic and Mexico from the storm), President Woodcock explained the history of how the Abreu Fellows program began at NEC, how and why the program has changed since its inception in 2009, and why he and his team feel that this program is so important to the field of music and music education. Much to the relief of the Fellows around the table, we learned a little more about our schedules for the year, as well as about the specific classes and projects we'll partake in. Looking around the table, I realized that there were 7 other people who were as passionate about the mission of El Sistema as I am, and equally eager to delve into this work. When I looked at the curriculum for the year, I felt like a pig in... um, mud. But seriously, it dawned on me how awesome it is to join a group of extraordinary people in asking questions, in getting our hands dirty in this work, in learning as much as we can about the exceptional program of El Sistema and how elements of it can be adapted to the U.S and beyond.

Already, several comments and questions emerged around the table that resonated with me. While we search as a group to communicate what we're learning in a way that's interesting and/or helpful, I'd like to simply echo some of the questions and comments that may become themes this year.

• Leadership at every level of an organization is essential to the success of that organization. In describing the expectations of the Abreu Fellows, President Woodcock, and Leslie Wu Foley (Dean and Executive Director of Preparatory and Continuing Education) explained that this program is not attempting to create 10 new CEOs. Instead, it's positioning us to develop multiple skills that we can take with us to whichever direction we end up pursuing in this field. As Leslie explained, not everyone will start a program from scratch. The field needs more highly qualified people to help run existing programs in multiple ways, and this year's curriculum aims to position us to develop leadership skills necessary for several possible positions besides just CEO. 

• What is El Sistema? This is a question we will be asked time and again, just as former Fellows have been asked for the last two years. A definition in progress as the program itself evolves and metamorphoses. Thoughts are welcome here. What's your definition of El Sistema? To be continued... 

• How can we become better contributors to the field? I was overjoyed to hear that Erik Holmgren, our Program Director, has designed this year to be more project-based. We have so much capacity as a group to do something for the field, because we're not currently overseeing programs. We can use this year to make a contribution. Curious to learn more about how we're going to do this, exactly.  

• Here's a big juicy one: When does it make sense for organizations to collaborate? Or, why do we collaborate, and how? In Venezuela, one major goal of El Sistema is to save children's lives through music. In order to do that, the nucleos work together in many ways to ensure that the maximum number of children can participate in a rich and engaging experience. It would seem natural that in the U.S., organizations would want to learn from each other and share resources to help advance the mission of saving numerous children's lives through music. But does it make sense? How does collaborating impact our fundraising culture? When should we collaborate, and why?

• El Sistema in Venezuela has been a major supporter of the El Sistema “movement” in the United States. As we begin to identify what that movement looks like and how the El Sistema-inspired programs adapt to the needs of communities in the U.S., it's possible that our programs will look quite different from those in Venezuela. What implications will this have on our relationship with the Venezuelan program? I'll leave this question as it is, as it's probably far more loaded than I'm in any position to explore. But it came up, so here it is.

Update: please visit fellow Abreu Fellow Stephanie Hsu's beautiful blog on the art of getting lost and discovering in the world of education.

Found Sound Nation and the Lucerne Festival, August 2011

August 22, 2011

For the next three weeks, Found Sound Nation is leading a series of projects in collaboration with the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland.

The School Project: a music-writing workshop (using found sounds and audio technology) at a school in Nebikon for 10 boys between the ages of 15-17, and their teachers. Our goal is to give the kids an opportunity to discover their own music, connect with one another, and engage in a fun learning experience.

On Thursday, August 25, we’ll host a party at the “Buvette,” which will include a presentation of our work with the boys, and live mixing of sounds created by the people who stop by the party.

As part of the Spotlight program of the Lucerne Festival Academy, Found Sound Nation will continue over the next two weeks with a street studio project, in which anyone can come off the streets of Lucerne to record and mix sounds in our mobile street studio. The sounds will be posted to our site and/or Facebook page periodically as we mix everything together.

Found Sound Nation and the Lucerne Festival: School Project Day 1

I'm thrilled to be in Lucerne, Switzerland, where Found Sound Nation was invited by the Lucerne Festival to lead a series of projects, including a song-writing workshop for a group of teenagers in Nebikon. This iteration of the Found Sound Nation crew includes Chris, Jeremy, Elena, myself, and our newest member and videographer/musician/projectionist/all-around-awesome-guy Temujin Doran.

August 23, 2011

Accompanied by Johannes Fuchs (the Education Director at the Lucerne Festival), his girlfriend Katarina, and his assistant Melanie, we trekked over to Nebikon from Lucerne this morning at 7.30am. Saddled with musical instruments, audio production equipment, and big ideas for connecting with 17-year old Swiss boys through music, we arrived in Nebikon to the smell of cow dung and the site of marvelous green hills.

The school – which we're told is new and exclusively for students who have been held back in school due to behavioral and social challenges – stood behind the train station, and we were greeted by one of the lovely teachers, Marie-Louisa. After setting up the room (a Zoom here, two laptops there, a projector here, an XLR there), we met with the four teachers who would participate in the workshop alongside the students.

While we had planned to include teachers and staff as much as possible (we encourage everyone to be a participant in our workshops and not merely observers), we hadn't anticipated the challenge this would cause in creating a safe space for the students. We began the day in one room in a big circle: 10 boys between the ages of 15-17, 4 teachers, 3 staff members from the Lucerne Festival, and 5 Found Sound Nationers. Already, there were more adults than students.




Chris and Jeremy began with a warm-up of a game they call Toma Toma, in which one person spends one minute making and recording any sound they'd like for an audio track, and another person builds on that track by creating one minute of his own music. And so on and so forth, until we've recorded multi-layered tracks that can be considered musical vignettes developed as a group. While some of the students participated right away, others were reticent to approach the mic, and we wondered if this was a combination of fear of “performing” in front of peers (it was their 2nd day of school), inhibition to “perform” in front of their teachers, or simply discomfort with working in a setting that was being led in English with German translation (my once-fluent German going to waste in the midst of Schweizer-Deutsch dialect).

We managed to record a few short tracks during Toma Toma before breaking for lunch. Over lunch, we re-assessed our strategy and decided on another approach to invite the students to feel freer to create some meaningful material that they felt they owned.


The strategy was as follows: we'd split into four musical stations and four groups of students, accompanied by a teacher. Each group would have 30 minutes to work at each musical station to create and record music that they liked. In one room, Tem worked with the groups on a piano. The lyric-writing station was led by Elena, a teacher, and Melanie. Jeremy and I developed melodies with the groups (with two French horns, melodica, ukelele, and voices), and Chris worked with the groups on creating beats. At the end of the day, we all came back together to hear the clips that we'd created. Feedback from the day? The students loved the beat-station the best (unsurprisingly; it is exceedingly cool).


(Tem plays the Uke)

What surprised us was the variety of songs that the boys came up with. One student wrote angry lyrics about smoking drugs, envy of brand-name clothes, and wishing ill upon his enemies by explaining that when he has a house with a garden, he'll stick them in the backyard as a little garden gnome (which, although a hateful phrase, couldn't help but be slightly amusing coming out of Switzerland). Another student wrote a moving text about death. Yet another student wrote a heartbreaking love song that was easy to put a melody to, and which we all pleasantly had in our heads the rest of the day.

We look forward to another workshop tomorrow, in which the students will choose which tracks to put together for a full song. Out of nothing, appears something beautiful and bedeutungsvoll.

(Note: this blog will be re-posted to the FSN website with more photos and videos of the students.)

Found Sound Nation and the Lucerne Festival: School Project Day 2

(CONTINUED from Day 1 of Student Workshops in Nebikon)

August 24, 2011

The sessions began today at 8.30am. The students and teachers piled into the large room right on time, and ready to go. It's always fascinating to see the change that people go through once they understand this musical process. Instead of feeling tentative, they're eager to dive right in and create. Already, we noticed that some of the boys sat next to each other, put their arms around one another's shoulders, laughed and joked together like old friends (when they were strangers the day before).

We began by listening to the tracks that Chris and Jeremy had cleaned up (compressed, etc.) the night before (until 3am). For the most part, the students were happy with what they heard. I think that hearing the music they'd written gave them confidence to make more and better musical decisions, and they seemed eager to get to work, developing and combining the tracks into actual songs.

Two of the groups stayed with Chris, Elena, and Melanie, while two of the groups came with Jeremy, Tem, and me. We spent the next two hours re-recording vocals, overlaying additional instruments, adding some extra beats, until finally we had four really great tunes.

But even more remarkable than the music that emerged this morning was the feeling of camaraderie that enveloped us as we worked together. The boys cheered each other on when they heard something they liked; they respectfully listened quietly when we were recording someone; they listened to playbacks huddled together like a team. They trusted Jeremy, Tem, and I not to tell them what to do, but simply to support whatever musical decisions they wanted to make.

There were two examples that really underscore this point about the transformation of some of these young men. I should preface this by saying that we're fully aware of the complexity of using the word “transformation” when it comes to a 1.5 day workshop, and that whatever we noticed might only be a temporary uplifting of moods. Still, there were two moments that highlight what makes this work so damned rich for all of us.

The first example is of a young man, who, on the first day, was totally hyperactive and on the border of being “out of control.” He demanded to be the center of attention, and while he was basically a good kid, he overshadowed the others and made it difficult for them to participate in the music-making. By the second day, as the boys began to bond with one another and form friendships, the unruly one began to settle down. He somehow realized that his opinion wasn't going to trump the decisions of the group, and he patiently waited while others recorded and developed their tracks. He was brilliant at beat-boxing, and seemed happy to bring his skills to the table to enhance the beats of the tunes. I loved watching him soften, becoming aware that it's OK to be part of the group, and not always “on.”

The second example was in regards to the shyest boy of the bunch, and perhaps the one with the worst self-image. Before I continue, I should explain something about myself: in working with children, I am always attracted to the most difficult one, and I find myself drawn to include the kid who sits in the back of the room stewing in his misery and self-loathing. I'm not sure why, but this has always been the case. So it's no surprise that I noticed Michael* (name changed for protection) sitting deliberately further away from everyone in each of our sessions. He made no effort to participate. When we were in the small groups yesterday, I began to understand that he is deeply self-conscious and angry. In that session, I had tried to include him in multiple ways, but continually failed. However, I noticed one thing: he would mutter to himself under his breath, and somehow I understood his voice and the German to know that he was making comments on the music. Things like, “that's not the right beat for this song,” or, “that needs another melody.” He was making musical decisions to himself, without wanting to actively participate.

Today, while we were completing the tracks, we were asking everyone to give us text they'd written that we hadn't used yet. He handed me his text but insisted that he didn't want to use it. When I asked why, he said it sucked. I offered to work with him on developing it if he didn't like it, and asked him some questions about what he didn't like. He wasn't cooperating in the conversation, so I asked him to come to a corner where the rest of the group couldn't hear us. I explained that we didn't have to use his text if he didn't want to, but that we were here to help him make music that he liked. He replied with, “Es ist mir egal” (it doesn't matter to me at all), and “kann ich einfach sitzen und nicht mitteilen?” (can't I just sit and not participate?) Here, I “outed” him by saying, “I don't believe that you don't care. I've overheard you yesterday muttering your opinion about the music under your breath, and I believe you have many opinions about the music. So, what do you think? What would you do with these tunes if you could do anything?” Aha! It was here he snapped (in a good way!) and said, “well, actually, yeah, I don't like the beats you chose to use today, but I loved some of the beats from yesterday that we made. One of them was one of the coolest beats I've ever heard, and I'd like to hear that one again.” Later, Jeremy and I ended up finding the beat he was referring to and including it in a song, and while Michael continued to sit in the back of the room quietly, he smiled when we all listened to the track later and he recognized the beat that he'd chosen for it. Perhaps not the most glorious "teaching moment" on my part (although I was secretly very proud to have conducted our whole conversation in German), but a minor success with a boy who probably rarely gives himself an opportunity to feel proud of his accomplishments.

By the end of the day, we all gathered in one room to listen to what we'd created together. It was fantastic! And the best news of all: the teachers are going to arrange for the students to come to Lucerne for our party at the Buvette on Thursday night, where we'll present the boys' work and explain the project to the public.

While we may not see these boys again after Thursday (or at least for a long time), we hope that they'll walk away knowing that they created and owned something that is exclusively theirs.

TEDxNewYork moves to Saatchi & Saatchi!

As some of you know, I "inherited" the facilitator/curator role of TEDxNewYork earlier this summer. TEDxNewYork is an independently organized TED event, and our format is simple: we meet weekly, watch a video of a TED talk, and then discuss it for 40 minutes within a diverse and dynamic group of New Yorkers. In the TED spirit of "ideas worth spreading," we share our ideas with each other in a mighty little NY community.

Currently, TEDxNY has a team of moderators, including myself, Gina Bria, Christine Hart, and TEDxNY founders (and licensee) Don McKinney and Chel O'Reilly.

We have some exciting news: TEDxNewYork is moving to Saatchi & Saatchi! The world-renowned creative communications company has graciously invited us to host our salons at their headquarters on 375 Hudson Street. We send many thanks to the team at Grey for all of their support over the years, and will remember our salons there fondly.

If you're interested in getting involved, or if you have any questions, please write to TEDXNY@gmail.com.

TEDxNewYork Salon: August 19 John Francis Walks the Earth

Today we watched the John Francis video. Imagine taking a day to be silent, to fully listen to your environment...

TEDxNY Salon: August 12, The power of the body to communicate

Today, our guest facilitator Gina Bria chose two shorter videos, which we watched back to back (Ron Gutman's "The Hidden Power of Smiling", and Julian Treasure's "Five Ways to Listen Better"). We enjoyed comparing and discovering the powers of our bodies to communicate. When we left, many more people were smiling at each other. What can you change to become more attuned to your environment, to connect more with others?

On Writing for the Createquity Fellowship: July 2011

This spring, I wrote for Createquity.com as part of the site's inaugural Fellowship. Our charge was simple: write at least two shorter blogs, and two longer blogs, about topics that interest you. One of the longer blogs needed to be a piece for the Arts Policy Library, to read, summarize, and analyze arts policy literature.

When I learned that I'd received the fellowship, I already knew two topics that I wanted to explore: El Sistema, and jazz audience engagement. I was also interested in learning more about the No Child Left Behind Act, and why schools in the U.S seemed to be suffering under its law. As for the Art Policy Library piece, I was curious about Catterall's work, and eventually read "Critical Links." Ian David Moss, the fellowship and site director, wrote a nice culminating piece about the Fellows' writings.

Here's what I didn't know: how unbelievably long it would take to research and write these pieces. I'm generally a slow writer, but this was ridiculous. Part of the painstaking amount of time I spent on each piece (besides the El Sistema blog, which took maybe an hour to draft) came from a feeling of inadequacy to write about certain topics with any authority. Furthermore, it was hard to balance my inclination to write in a professional tone for this prominent blog, and my interest to not write something that was unreadable in its dryess.

I was happy to recently stumble upon Andrea Sachdeva's research report for the 2009 20UNDER40 book, in which she describes this very same feeling of inexperience among other young arts practitioners. (Disclosure: I had submitted a chapter to the book in 2009, proposing an idea for a Teaching Artist international exchange.)

The initial "Call for Chapter Proposals" for the 20UNDER40 anthology... solicited innovative ideas about the future of the arts and arts education from forward-thinking arts leaders under the age of 40. In considering my own thoughts about preparing a chapter proposal for the anthology, I began to feel that my youth and inexperience made me woefully unqualified to have a voice in the conversation about envisioning the future of the arts sector... [My] colleagues echo[ed] my uncertainties... Evenutally, the concept of 20UNDER40 had stirred up so many raw feelings within the field that project director Edward Clapp was compelled to write "This is Our Emergency," a widely-distributed essay addressing the startling phenomenon of young leaders' feelings of irrelevance and self-doubt that was based on countless emails he had received and conversations he had engaged in with under-40 arts practitioners who repeated the same sentiments."

The good news is, we're not alone! But the even better news is that leaders like Edward Clapp and Ian David Moss have paved the way for some of us to practice writing and hone our style as we develop our ideas about the future of our field. We need not feel intimidated by more experienced arts practitioners and writers; instead, we have a platform to ask questions, discover, and take risks. Writing for Createquity was one of the scariest and time-consuming projects I've ever done, but it also was one of the most important in helping me build confidence as a writer, arts professional, and questioner of the world around me. Many thanks to Ian for this wonderful opportunity. I look forward to cheering on the next class of Createquity Fellows.