Recently, students from music education non-profits Music Haven, Neighborhood Strings, My Cincinnati, and Community MusicWorks came together for the Youth Institute, a weekend of discussion and workshops on the topics of racism, social justice, and the participating music programs.

Natasha Rosario co-led the session with fellow CMW alum Liam Hopkins at Rolling Ridge Retreat and Conference Center in North Andover, Massachusetts, and gave us her reflection on the gathering:

There was a spirited dynamic between the leaders and participants over the weekend. The first session walked through the structures in society which have enabled and supported racism after slavery. Next, we listened to a personal account involving racial profiling and considered the assumptions we have made based on limited information about another person and reflected on them. 

In a session on Our Music Programs we asked participants to consider a present need in their community and to brainstorm an organization that would address this need. There was brilliant engagement; we were moved to hear about the issues our peers proposed to address in their hometowns: a transition program for ex-inmates, a space for students outside of school as an academic supplement where students could have meaningful discussions about issues in their communities, a visual arts program, and more. 

We worked through some hands-on visual arts exercises with charcoal in the session A Creative Practice, and challenged our creative thinking with awkward and unfamiliar drawing exercises on newsprint – this stretched our creative minds, encouraged us to be loose and left no time to be perfectionists. We talked about the many creative things we do in our lives besides the music programs we participate in and pondered the different things (i.e. specific skills, life lessons, personal experiences) we take with us after graduating. 

There was of course time for music-making! We enjoyed jam sessions on Saturday night reading music, improvising, and learning songs by ear. The students particularly appreciated getting to know participants from similar-minded programs, seeing old friends they met last year, and discussing program ideas together. 

On our last day we watched a documentary about the protests for the life of Michael Brown Jr. in Ferguson, Missouri. Crimes of this nature – where excessive force by police officers used in black communities results in the physical abuse and sometimes death of the citizens – are of the most viscerally upsetting reminders that to be a second-class citizen means to be worth less in every capacity. This session was emotionally distressing because of how close to home it is for all of us; it feels like a personal attack. The event in Ferguson – with no consequential action for the officer who killed a non-threatening citizen – demonstrates the inconsistency in the expectations for, and the exceptions to the law. 

In the afternoon, we focused on our mental and physical awareness in a session dedicated to movement and meditation. This session was meant to address the physical experience of life – everything from trauma through joy – and listen to the way our bodies track our experiences. The students welcomed the curative properties of this hour. After such heavy – albeit meaningful – discussions, it can be difficult to trudge forward with the acknowledged weight we all carry. 

The space we shared in discussion as alumni and students from the MusicWorks Network programs felt intimate because we shared certain qualities and experiences in common. It would be particularly worthwhile for this group of students to see what the other programs in the Network are working on at different points throughout the year: it’s inspiring to see other people doing what you do! I was about 15 years old when I went to a summer music camp and met a cellist from a program in Dallas. It was the first time I realized there were other music programs doing similar things as Community MusicWorks, and it was validating. In that same way, the MusicWorks Network and Youth Institute bring people from similar programs together to share and learn with and from each other in a meaningful way.

Natasha Rosario is a cellist and Community MusicWorks and Brown University alum who begins a Master’s Program in Performance at Longy School of Music this fall.

Learn more about the MusicWorks Network and the Summer Institute.