More photos from The Importance of the Arts in Life & Public Schools by Jori in CMW's Flickr account.

Here is a link to Ellen Pfeiffer's blog which details a 2008 visit to Venezuela by a delegation from the New England Conservatory. In particular, her reporting from Venezuela got my attention when she featured a visit to the "Luthier Academic Center" which is a training school for the many, many luthiers who are essential to building and maintaining the thousands of instruments needed by El Sistema.

Photo by Ellen Pfeiffer (presumably)

NEC is currently developing a one-year Boston-based post-graduate training program to catalyze the creation of future leaders for El Sistema-like nucleos, first in Boston and then further afield. Learn more here.

-Heath Marlow, CMW staff

Music Haven, a string quartet residency in New Haven inspired by CMW and founded in 2006 by violinist Tina Lee Hadari, was recently featured in the New Haven Register.

“We were proposing the traditional model of a string quartet in
residence at a university with obligations to perform, teach in a
university setting, but we wanted to translate it to a neighborhood,”
Hadari says after a recent dress rehearsal.

“The idea was that
our string quartet would be not only a civic resource, but we would be
residents of a special community. Initially, we would start with the
Hill, because it was small, then Dwight, Dixwell, Newhallville.”

Click here to read the entire article. More about Music Haven here.

-Heath Marlow, CMW staff

Photo of Louis and Josh by Sebastian.

Community MusicWorks has been selected as the 2009 recipient of the Jabez Gorham Award. This award, administered by the Arts & Business Council of Rhode Island, recognizes "outstanding arts/cultural organizations in Rhode Island for
unwavering commitment to excellence, significant impact on the
community, and success in organizational development." Click here to read about the other 2009 award winners.

The Jabez Gorham Award will be presented* on Thursday, May 14. Tickets to the Encore Awards are available here.

*The Encore Awards have been postponed until February 2010.

Phase II retreated to Jamestown for the day today, for rehearsals, Youth
Salon planning, and hiking on the rocks. They're primed and ready for
an awesome Youth Salon, so get ready! Saturday, April 25 @ 7 PM…

-Sebastian Ruth, PSQ

After Phase III quartet rehearsal let out on a beautiful Thursday afternoon, Louis Ortiz posed in front of the CMW storefront rehearsal studio.

Early (WAY too early) Monday morning, the Phase III student quartet met at the CMW office to head over to Warwick’s Crowne Plaza Hotel, where the quartet had been invited to play for the RI Kids Count breakfast. The breakfast was to celebrate the release of the 2009 Rhode Island Kids Count Factbook, which reports on 63 indicators of child well-being across five subjects: Family and Community, Economic Well-Being, Health, Safety, and Education.

The breakfast was held in the Grand Ballroom at the hotel, where more than 300 supporters of Kids Count gathered to enjoy French toast and fresh fruit. The quartet was seated onstage at the front of the room, near the podium where Kids Count Executive Director Elizabeth Burke Bryant greeted guests. Also featured on the program were Senator Jack Reed, Harriet Meyer, President of the Ounce of Prevention Fund, who gave a great keynote address, and Amber Johnson, winner of the RI Poetry Out Loud Competition. The quartet played Lift Every Voice, We Shall Overcome, and the first movement of the Mozart Quartet in G Major, K. 156. The audience was very appreciative, and the quartet later showed up on Channel 10’s coverage of the event!

The quartet was able to grab a quick breakfast after their performance, and enjoyed chatting with Tom Brady (that’s the Superintendent of the Providence Public Schools Tom Brady, not the Patriots’ quarterback Tom Brady). Then it was back to school, after a great performance, and a great start to the week.

-Phase III (Luis, Kirby, Sydney)

Well, you probably had to be at Jeff Louie's songwriting Musical Workshop on Friday for that to make sense…

Photos by Jori. More at CMW's Flickr account.

On Sunday, Rachel and Arlyn chaperoned a bus filled with CMW families to hear the PSQ members perform as guest soloists with the RI Philharmonic Community Orchestra. Rachel solicited some feedback on the way back to the CMW office after the concert.