Welcome to Season 25

Community MusicWorks began in 1997 as an experiment in seeing how musicianship, community-based practice, education, and social justice could be threaded together in ways that enabled musicians to make sustainable and meaningful careers of service to their communities, and for young people and families to engage in meaningful artistic experiences.

Along with an ever-present spirit of experimentation and continual evolution, our planning for this milestone season reflects each one of those elements: we are seeding plans for a new building which will serve as a community hub, cultivating the next generation of leadership with the introduction of two Alumni Fellows, and celebrating musical collaborations of the past by bringing back commissioned works and former staff and students to make music with us. And, we are returning to live concerts and in-person music lessons after a year and a half without either.

Our musicians roll out Season 25 with a round of CMW Delivers, popping up with performances in all 25 neighborhoods of Providence to celebrate the 25th season. The MusicWorks Collective opening concert at the Temple to Music centers around the theme of variation, and our mid-fall program, Songs of Loss, Songs of Healing, honors the many we have lost through disease and violence since the beginning of the pandemic.

We return in spring with Songs of Refuge, a collaboration with Dorcas International Institute and with musicians from the local refugee community. We look forward to featuring both existing and new works by composer Kareem Roustom, celebrating his music as well as his arrangements of songs from Persia, Syria, and Somalia. And our annual Fred Kelley Scholarship Concert will feature an arrangement of Schubert for string quartet with guest tenor Frank Kelley.

And finally, we’ll close this special season in June with hugs, high-fives, and a large reunion ensemble! Our 25th Season Alumni Concert brings together current and former students and staff for a musical celebration with a program featuring a new work by hip-hop violinist and composer Big Lux, who is also this year’s CMW artist-in-residence.

Of course, check our calendar for Student Performance Parties, the return of our Sonata Series, and much more!

Thank you for joining us to celebrate a quarter century and the start of a new chapter.

–Sebastian Ruth, Founder & Artistic Director