We're so grateful to our community for responding so generously to our request for financial support in December. We received approximately 200 donations totaling more than $45,000. And even better, this entire amount will be matched by the Carter Family Charitable Trust! Thank you for investing in CMW.

-Heath Marlow, CMW staff

 
musiConnects is the new home organization of the Boston Public Quartet! Our mission and work are still the same, but we wanted to add a new name that helps describe what we do – social change through chamber music, connecting kids, connecting families, connecting community!

-Betsy Hinkle, Founder

[Editor: CMW Fellowship Program alumni Adrienne Taylor and Jason Amos joined the Boston Public Quartet in September 2010.]

Photo: Netta Hadari

The central vehicle for achieving Music Haven’s goals is the Haven String Quartet, its resident ensemble. The group — Tina Hadari and Yaira Matyakubova on violins, Colin Benn on viola and Matthew Beckmann on cello — performs, alone or with students, at nearly all of the organization’s concerts.

On Monday, the group will perform two pieces on its own: the “Lyric Quartet,” a three-part suite in the Debussy mode written in 1960 by the African-American composer William Grant Still, and "Rosa Parks" part of “A Civil Rights Reader,” an ongoing project of the Haitian-American violinist and composer Daniel Bernard Roumain. Both performances will be firsts for the quartet.

The decision to focus on Mr. Roumain, 40, who seems as comfortable writing string quartets as he was appearing with Lady Gaga on “American Idol," is an apt one. Told of Music Haven’s decision to play “Parks,” he expressed appreciation, noting that the piece was his fifth for string quartet, and a sixth had been commissioned by Community MusicWorks in Providence, RI—the organization Ms. Hadari cited as a model for her group.

Read the entire article here.

The Abreu Fellows Program at New England Conservatory provides tuition-free instruction and a needs-based living stipend for ten outstanding postgraduate musicians and music educators, "passionate for their art and for social justice," who seek to guide the development of El Sistema programs in the U.S. 

Pending confirmation of funding, the third class of Abreu Fellows will begin their training at New England Conservatory in Boston on August 29, 2011. The first semester will include visits to El Sistema-inspired programs in the U.S. and a series of intensive workshops centered on the musical, educational and organizational components of launching an El Sistema-inspired program in the U.S. The second semester will include a two-month period of applied study in Venezuela, followed by a three-week guided internship at an El Sistema-inspired program in the U.S. The Application Deadline is February 14.

Find the Abreu Fellows Program application materials here.

Students record themselves improvising over their electronic compositions.

Alana and Brian show their mothers how to use software. In December, family members attended final classes of the semester for demos and a screening of student work.

More Media Lab photos by Jori are available in CMW's Flickr account.

More photos by Jori in CMW's Flickr account.

In December, the CMW Players performed audiovisual compositions by Caroline Park, Stephan Moore, and David Len Elion, all participants in Betsey Biggs' class last fall at Brown University.