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Hello from Newfoundland!

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Our good friend from the North, Carole Bestvater (CMW Violin Fellow 2009-2011), shares the latest news from Strong Harbour Strings along with an update on a visit from our own MusicWorks Network Fellow and CMW student alum, Andrew Oung. Carole is the Director & Founder of the program, located in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
 
Wow, it’s hard to imagine that five years have passed since this program started!  Here we are, in Strong Harbour Strings’ fifth season, with so much to celebrate. This year, there are 24 students in our main centre, all coming two times a week for group and individual lessons.  We also started a satellite centre in a nearby neighbourhood across the harbour. There are 16 students who come twice a week during their lunch hour to learn the violin and viola. There are three new staff members who joined the team this season, so we’re having fun getting to know each other, teaching, and playing music together.
 
We recently played a concert of the Vivaldi Four Seasons in a downtown pub, selling out the place! People loved it! We’re planning on repeating the concert in a workshop for the SHS students, as well as in another family-friendly venue.  It’s been a very exciting time for Strong Harbour Strings.

The most exciting aspect right now is that Andrew Oung, the MusicWorks Network Fellow, is currently in St. John’s for a six week internship.  He’s working with a small group of 7th graders in developing the culture for a group inspired by CMW’s teen group, Phase II.  He’s been leading discussions, prompting conversations, and laying down a foundation for a group like this to continue after his internship here has finished. It has been exciting to see this aspect of Strong Harbour Strings develop, and feels like the missing puzzle piece is finally in place.  Now that we have students who are growing, developing critical thinking, and are completely blissed out that they get to keep on learning music and hanging out with each other, we’re finally ready to develop a Phase II-like program for them.
Sending love and hugs from the North Atlantic,

Carole Bestvater

 

Andrew Oung also sent along an update on his visit:

For the past few weeks I have been working here with Strong Harbour Strings. It has been wonderful getting to know all of the students and staff. I work with them three times a week, each day taking on a different role. I have started a small discussion group with the program’s 7th graders, I teach violin lessons, I support teachers during orchestra time, and I help students learn music theory. Strong Harbour takes place at two locations, one of which is the Cornerstone Ministry Centre. I really love that there is an open space where students and parents gather while they wait for lessons. It provides an opportunity for them to naturally interact with each other, and helps the music theory mentors be visible and accessible.
 
Outside of the educational aspect of the program, I attended a performance by the staff, named the Strong Harbour Strings Collective. They performed Vivaldi’s Four Season at The Black Sheep Pub to a full audience. I loved seeing how much the audience enjoyed the performance and I overheard somebody proudly say, “where else in the world can you hear Vivaldi in a pub”. While I can think of another city very dear to me where that could be true, I still think there is a uniqueness to the music community here. I’ll be in St. John’s for a few more weeks and I look forward to learning more about Strong Harbour Strings and the musical community here.

 

 

 

A Place to Play: Celebrating Music Haven’s New Office

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We checked in with former CMW Fellow Annalisa Boerner (Viola Fellow 2012-2014), who has joined the staff of Music Haven in New Haven, CT as a full time Resident Musician and member of the Haven String Quartet. Here, Annalisa shares some news about the program’s new digs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday, January 19th, Music Haven celebrated its tenth year of teaching and our move into a beautiful new space with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Our new offices are in a former factory space called Erector Square. Our suite was too small for a school, too big for a yoga studio, and just right for our organization to fit into and grow with.

Music Haven’s new location, where we rehearse, teach, and perform, is helping our program grow in ways big and small. The sense of community is palpable when our eighty students gather for group classes on Fridays, and as they filter in and out throughout the week. We love to see them doing homework and playing Uno in the lounge area as they wait for lessons. On the teaching side, I can keep a shelf of music, a jar of clothespins, and both a violin and a viola close at hand, and my students can have lessons in a calm environment that’s dedicated to music-making. We’ve hosted studio recitals with potlucks in our large performance space, and we look forward to debuting next year’s Chamber Series concerts in this area as well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The program for the afternoon of the 19th included words from Mandi Jackson, Executive Director; Yaira Matyakubova, violinist and Senior Resident Musician; and Mayor Toni Harp (!) who cut the ribbon. The Music Lanterns, an ensemble of nine to twelve-year-old students, kicked off the program, and the Harmony In Action chamber orchestra concluded it with a conductorless performance of Lean on Me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is thanks to our many supporters of all varieties that we are able to sustain and grow our program in this way.  Here’s to ten more years at Music Haven!

–Annalisa Boerner

Congratulations to Annalisa and the Music Haven staff and students!

 

Unlocking Meaning: CMW Fellows’ Residency at Butler Hospital

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“I find myself saying that it doesn’t matter what the music is, or at least that the content is a trivial concern compared to the importance of making a human connection between performer and listener.”

Heath Marlow, former CMW staffer and current faculty/staff at New England Conservatory, reflects on his work with CMW Fellows in creating and implementing a performance residency at Butler Hospital, a psychiatric facility on Providence’s East Side,  in 2017:

At our first session together in Fall 2016, I asked the Fellows to come up with a new community (not the communities already served by Community MusicWorks) that could potentially benefit from interacting with a string quartet.

The group’s research led to the conclusion that it would be important to try out their ideas in an environment that had the capacity to support the quartet’s experimental activities. Butler Hospital’s Healing Arts Program was immediately receptive to hosting the quartet, and a series of three activities for distinct patient populations (adolescent, adult, geriatric) was soon decided upon.

 

​”It was personally humbling to participate in the workshops. The response in each unit was so different – but equally powerful. It felt challenging to insert ourselves into such an intense environment – having no idea where each person was on their healing path.”

Read Heath’s full account and reflection in his blog piece, here.

This year, Heath meets regularly with the current quartet of Fellows (and other interested musician colleagues) to discuss aspects of building a career as a musician at the intersection of artistry and community using the best practices associated with growing a community-based organization.