The Sunday event at the JCB is sold out, but please join us Saturday, October 22 at 7pm for our Providence College concert.
The MusicWorks Collective is excited to present our annual “Bach and Friends” concerts this weekend featuring works by J.S. Bach, Padre Antonio Soler, Georg Philipp Telemann, and Benjamin Britten. We are also thrilled to welcome back Fred Jodry as harpsichord soloist. This year Fred will be joined in duet by Paul Cinnewa, fellow harpsichordist. Our Founder and Artistic Director Sebastian Ruth will perform the solo viola part of Telemann’s Viola Concerto in G Major, and we’ll bring some of our students on stage to perform with us for the beloved Air from the Third Orchestral Suite in D (also known as “Air on the G string”) by J.S. Bach. We’ll conclude the performance with the always energizing Simple Symphony by Benjamin Britten.
This weekend’s concerts kick off our annual BachFest, with pop-up Bach performances all around Providence, culminating in an all-night-long Bach Marathon at Manning Chapel on November 11th
We hope you can join us this weekend as we begin our celebration of Bach! – either in the beautiful Ryan Concert Hall at Providence College on Saturday evening or in the John Carter Brown Library on Sunday afternoon (tickets for the JCB performance must be reserved in advance).
Full Program details below:
Concerto for Two Harpsichords in C Major, J.S. Bach BWV 1061
Fred Jodry and Paul Cinnewa, Harpsichords
Concerto II for Two Harpsichords by Padre Antonio Soler
Fred Jodry and Paul Cinnewa, Harpsichords
Viola Concerto in G Major, Georg Philipp Telemann
Sebastian Ruth, viola
Air from the Third Orchestral Suite in D, BWV 1068, J.S. Bach
Simple Symphony, Benjamin Britten
Saturday, October 22, 7pm
Providence College
Smith Center for the Arts
Ryan Concert Hall
61 Eaton Street
Providence, RI
Admission is free and no reservations required.
Free parking available in lot adjacent to the concert hall. Use #61 Eaton Street for GPS directions to the Eaton Street Gate.
Sunday October 23, 3pm
John Carter Brown Library
Brown University
Providence, RI
This event is sold out.
Each year we begin our education programs with an evening celebration, where we invite all students and families to share in some music, discussions, games, and food. On Tuesday September 20th, CMW families gathered in the cafetorium of the Trinity Academy for Performing Arts to reunite, enjoy each others’ company, and learn about what to expect for the new year.
Teamwork and celebration were the themes of this year’s Community Day! Resident musician (and playwright) Chase Spruill wrote a skit for us to kick off the evening, featuring the MusicWorks Collective in a mock-ESPN sports coverage scenario. Chase and “Too-Cool” Chloe Kline played the role of sports commentators, while the Collective valiantly performed excerpts from Christopher Theofanidis’s Visions and Miracles, in spite of some questionable calls by a very strict referee Hannah Ross. At the end, our winded quarterback/concertmaster Jesse Holstein lauded the benefits of being part of a team to an interviewer.
Following the skit, students broke off into their performing ensembles for the year to reflect and think about their goals for the year ahead. Each group had a different activity, including writing down the ingredients that could help them form a good team and playing games focused on working together.
 
Daily Orchestra Program students attempt to untangle themselves in a game called “The Human Knot!”
Of course, no Community Day would be complete without a delicious meal, this year including a special cake to honor our 20th Season!
 We are looking forward to a year of music, learning, and celebrating with our students and families, and we can’t think of a better way to start our year!
–Lisa Barksdale, Resident Musician
We’re excited to announce that illustrious violist Hannah Ross will be re-joining CMW this year as a teacher at the Daily Orchestra Program and member of the MusicWorks Collective. During her time as a CMW fellow last year Hannah spent one day a week with the DOP coaching the orchestra and helping students practice. Now we’re thrilled that she’ll be with us five days a week!
As a CMW Fellow Hannah was also able to observe different music programs in various parts of the U.S., including Boston, LA, and Juneau, Alaska! Hannah was inspired by the programs she visited that were based in El Sistema and met every day. She became interested in working with a daily program, and was happy that the Daily Orchestra Program position would offer her the opportunity to both do this and to continue living and working in the city of Providence, which she had fallen in love with during her fellowship.
Hannah is excited about learning new ways of approaching a younger age group of students this year with the DOP, and looks forward to becoming more organized and methodical in her teaching.
Hannah also enjoys writing letters (the old fashioned way – on paper with a pen!), and she also used to tap dance! Hannah is also a talented baker, and her colleagues at CMW are thrilled that they will continue to be the recipients of Hannah’s famous home-baked treats!
We are so excited to continue working with, teaching with and performing with Hannah, and we’ll have more information about the new expansion of the Daily Orchestra Program coming to the blog soon!
—Adrienne Taylor, Daily Orchestra Program Director/Resident Musician
We have exciting news! Now that our 20th Season has begun, we are extremely happy to announce that Erika Ramirez is our new Program Coordinator! We are SO pleased that Erika will be joining the team, and we are excited about the many incredible attributes she brings to CMW, including firsthand experience as a CMW parent.
Erika has a long history with CMW, and a special insight into our programs. We asked her to talk a little bit more about her story, and here is what she had to say:
You have quite a story with CMW! Can you describe your history with CMW?
Well, I’ve been involved with CMW since 1999, I believe. I was working at West End Community Center when my ‘relationship’ with CMW started. Sebastian went to the Center in order to promote his program and his vision of introducing Classical music in this community. About that time, my son Rusbel started taking cello lessons with Heath. When Rusbel got to high school, he decided to leave CMW for football. After that, I did not have any child enrolled in the program; but my involvement with CMW continued in the form of volunteering my time in translating any forms from English to Spanish due to the large Hispanic population in the West End Area. Years past and here comes, Alana, who started her violin lessons (w/Sebastian) in 2005, I believe, she was 7. Eleven years later, now 18, she graduated in May.
What originally drew you to CMW?
Well, I like music first of all, and as a single mother, at that time it was a way to expose my children to something constructive; and financially, it was something that I could manage.
Do you have a favorite CMW memory?
The most recent favorite memory: When I saw Alana graduating, getting her own certificate. That meant that all the difficulties we had had during those 11 years paid off.
What drew you to the Program Coordinator Position?
Being involved with CMW for so many years as a parent became part of my regular life, so I thought that with my experience as a CMW parent I could take the new role of program coordinator and continue to be part of this big and beautiful program/family.
What are you looking forward to the most this year at CMW?
During my first year, I am looking forward to fulfill if not all but most of the goals that the program coordinator position entitles-especially the volunteer system. I know it is a big challenge, but I believe we can do better than previous years.
Do you have any special hobbies or hidden talents you’d like us to know about?
I love music in general, never learned to play any instruments, but I have some basic, basic knowledge. When I was a teenager I used to sing at school events and other activities. My hobby is to travel either by plane, car, train; whichever is the most convenient and cheapest way of doing it.
We later learned over lunch that Erika has some pretty superhuman driving skills and once drove 20 hours without stopping! We’re not sure if this skill will be useful as Program Coordinator, but we’re pretty much in awe!
We are so thrilled to welcome Erika to the CMW team!
–-Chloë Kline, Education Director/Resident Musician
This fall, CMW celebrates a significant milestone—20 years of creating cohesive urban community through music education and performance that transforms the lives of children, families, and musicians. As Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker almost a decade ago, we continue to grow and deepen our practice as a “revolutionary organization in which the distinction between performing and teaching disappears.”
Meanwhile, world-renowned bow maker and MacArthur Fellow Benoît Rolland is celebrating a major milestone of his own: the crafting of his 1,500th bow.
Bidding ends Thursday, October 13 at 1pm EST! Place your bid here.
Distraught after the recent terrorist events around the world, Benoît, a native Parisian who now makes his home in a suburb of Boston, felt compelled to make a gesture to encourage peace in the world, and therefore crafted a violin bow, Bow 1515, with the intention of giving to an organization whose mission promotes access to high quality music education for youth. Community MusicWorks is thrilled to be the recipient of this most generous gift. In Benoît’s own words, “To embrace life and engage in music is a potent antidote to violence. My donation is meant to encourage perseverance, artistic dedication and music sharing.”
The violin bow is ebony and gold mounted, with a signature gold and diamond inlay on the frog. We intend to auction the bow to the highest bidder. All proceeds of the sale will benefit Community MusicWorks.
We invite you to experience the exquisite craftsmanship of one of the world’s leading bow makers and make a bid for purchase. Or, if you know of someone who may be interested in purchasing this bow, please pass this information along. The individual who buys this bow will accomplish two goals: the proceeds of the sale will help CMW, and, hopefully, the bow will move on to world stages.
To watch a video of Bow 1515, click here:
Benoît Rolland Bow 1515, played by violinist In Mo Yang
To read about the bow, click here:
Benoît Rolland’s Twin Bow
To read about Benoît Rolland, click here:
Strings Magazine: Poetry in Motion: Benoît Rolland on the Making of Bows 1500 and 1515
Boston Globe: Watertown Bow Maker Practices Musical Alchemy
Photographs
Model and Image Benoît Rolland, Copyrighted
For more information, please contact Kelly Reed at kreed@communitymusicworks.org.
At the next Ars Subtilior concert on Sunday, October 2nd, the MusicWorks Collective will be joining forces with Ordinary Affects, a group led by violinist/composer Morgan Evans-Weiler that explores, workshops, and commissions contemporary experimental music. Together we will present the works of Michael Pisaro, Morgan Evans-Weiler and Joseph Kurdika. The concert will feature premiers of new compositions by Pisaro and Evans-Weiler.
Michael Pisaro is a member of the Wandelweiser collective, an international community of composers who explore slow, quiet, intimate music of a minimal nature. In early September, I was extremely delighted to to find out that New Yorker Magazine featured an article( “The Composers of Quiet” by Alex Ross)about the category of experimental music that has been presented on CMW’s Ars Subtilior series since its inaugural concert in 2012. In the article, Ross elegantly describes the scores of the Wandelweiser composer collective as “hovering in a space between sound and silence.” All of the composers featured on the next Ars Subtilior concert are connected to the Wandelweiser movement in one way or another. Michael Pisaro is a long-time member of the collective, Joseph Kudirka studied with Pisaro; Boston-based Morgan Evans-Weiler will be studying with Antoine Beuger, one of the founders of the collective, next month during a trip to Germany.
Although many of the characteristics of a “typical” Wandelweiser piece (slow, quiet, intimate) will be practiced during the concert, listeners will also be treated to delicately complex layers of unique timbres and sonic densities. This will partially be achieved by the expanded and unusual instrumentation of the concert—there will be ensemble members performing on amplified objects and sine tones—but also through the use of extended techniques on traditional instruments. Pisaro describes the range of sounds in his piece from “pure tone” to “pitch-focused noise” or “degrees of more or less white noise.” In other words, you’ll see two cellos, but you ain’t gonna hear two cellos.
How does one compose density or timbre? How does a composer translate these ideas to musicians and in turn, how do the musicians interpret these ideas correctly?
One way Michael Pisaro achieves this is by referring the performers of his piece to the paintings of J .M. W. Turner. He describes them as having “a sense of a landscape that is thoroughly penetrated by sunlight, fog, mist and debris; where the features of the landscape (ships, shore, cliffs, buildings, animals, people) are just recognizable behind the teaming elements. The paint is uneven, layered, material, textured: but even when dense, never heavy.”
It is highly conceptual music, but it is meant to sound organic and natural, the way water evaporates into air. The music is not only supposed to create atmosphere, but sound like it.
The works by Kurdika and Evans-Weiler also consider equally complex ideas. Kudirka’s score does not use traditional musical notation; there are only written directions, such as: “Each sound that a player makes should be conditioned by physical properties of the player/instrument.” And Morgan Evans-Weiler notes “Since the possibilities of variation are so vast, players should consider all manners of sound creation on their instrument. Playing a clear ‘normal’ pitch should be one in a thousand possibilities that a performer may choose.”
I hope you can join us in our explorations of these new and uncharted sonic landscapes.
–-Laura Cetilia, Resident Musician
We hope you can join us to hear Ordinary Affects and MusicWorks Collective perform:
Sunday, October 2nd, 2016
8:00 PM
186 Carpenter St
Providence, RI
Suggested donation $5-10
There will also be a performance in Somerville, MA
Saturday, October 1, 2016
8:00 PM
321 Washington St
Somerville, MA
Suggested donation $5-10
Please join us for the opening concert in a series featuring CMW musicians and guests celebrating the sonata form. This season, concerts take place at the Music Mansion, and we kick off the series with Jesse Holstein, Josie Davis and pianist Jeff Louie performing Bartok, Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
We will be opening the program with a selection of Bela Bartok’s Duos for Two Violins. These pithy but brilliant pieces encapsulate the Hungarian composer’s unique mature style: a perfect synthesis of Eastern European folk music and the Western Classical tradition.
Next on the program: Prokofiev. I’m sure we can all relate to the feeling of witnessing mediocrity and thinking, “I could do that and a lot better.” This was the sentiment expressed by Sergey Prokofiev in his 1941 autobiography regarding his Sonata for Two Violins composed in Paris, 1932: “Listening to bad music sometimes inspires good ideas… After once hearing an unsuccessful piece [unspecified] for two violins without piano accompaniment, it struck me that in spite of the apparent limitations of such a duet one could make it interesting enough to listen to for ten or fifteen minutes….”
Indeed, in the span of fifteen minutes, Prokofiev scripts an incredibly rich dialogue between two violins. Written in a slow-fast-slow-fast four movement structure, the conversation runs the gamut between the most tender affections to violent brutality. This masterpiece of the violin duet repertoire will be the centerpiece of our Sonata Series performance.
For the final piece on the program pianist Jeff Louie will join us for Five Pieces for Two Violins and Piano written by Dmitri Shostakovich and arranged by Lev Atovmian. The pieces are charming–from a delightful polka to a witty waltz. The music is uncharacteristic of the turbulent Shostakovich that we might often imagine, and we hope it will make for an uplifting end to our journey through violin duet repertoire.
–Jesse Holstein, Associate Director/Senior Resident Musician
–Josie Davis, Violin Fellow
We hope you can join us for Sonata Series #1!
Thursday, September 29 at 7pm
Selections from Duos for Two Violins, Bela Bartok
Sonata for Two Violins, Sergei Prokofiev
Five Melodies for Two Violins, Dmitri Shostakovich
Josie Davis, violin
Jesse Holstein violin
Jeff Louie, piano
Music Mansion
88 Meeting Street, Providence
Admission is free
Community MusicWorks is grateful for continued support from the D’Addario Foundation—an organization committed to supporting music programs that have been proven to be most effective in creating positive social change.
On September 22nd in Brooklyn, New York, D’Addario is hosting Music Makes You: A Benefit to Support Music Education. The evening event will feature a live auction to raise awareness and funds for eight music-centered non-profits. We are thrilled that Community MusicWorks is a featured organization and would like to thank D’Addario for their generous support and recognition of our program!
More information about the benefit event and the D’Addario Foundation is available here: http://bit.ly/2bE92Tq
–Josie Davis, Violin Fellow
Each year, CMW welcomes two musicians to its Fellowship Program. The Fellowship program, which began in 2006, is a two-year intensive immersion that gives career-bound musicians the experience of participating in the Community MusicWorks model. Fellows teach, perform and mentor alongside Resident Musicians. Through hands-on experience working within the larger community and with key organizational practices, they are encouraged to imagine careers that combine artistic practice with service. This year we are delighted to be joined by violist Ashley Frith and cellist Zan Berry! Here’s a little bit more about them…
Ashley Frith, from Miami, FL, decided to postpone her time in a Masters Program in Viola Performance in order to participate in the CMW Fellowship Program. “I was brought to this unique opportunity by a mutual friend of Jesse Holstein. I felt that being a part of this organization was the next obvious step in my musical journey, the step I didn’t know was possible – the opportunity to learn and experience the possibilities of combining the endless pursuit of musical excellence with the goal of making a profound impact on our world community. “
Ashley is inspired by CMW’s commitment to “quality in every aspect of their work and treating each task with the same level of respect and attention.” She is most looking forward to broadening her understanding of what it means to truly be of service and continuing to develop the ways in which she can assist others through music.
When asked to describe herself as a musician, she responded, “I’m not sure how I would describe myself as a musician yet, but I would describe myself as a thoughtful and passionate person. Maybe it’s the same, not sure; I know they definitely inform each other!”
In her spare time Ashley loves singing and playing old gospel hymns and jazz tunes.
Zan Berry moved to Providence from Ann Arbor, MI, where he obtained a MM Cello Performance degree at the University of Michigan in 2014. As both performer and teacher Zan says “I am very interested in breaking out of traditional molds of musical performance and education to make Classical music more relevant to 21st century society. I felt that the CMW mission encompassed this broader perspective of a musician’s role in society and recognized the potential for music to change people’s lives.”
Zan is especially looking forward to the diverse musical opportunities that the Fellowship program offers to everyone in the CMW community – “everything from the Bach Around Town pop up concerts to the Ars Subtillior New Music Series to getting to explore a wide variety of musical styles and ideas with the students and faculty in lessons and group classes.” He has a strong inclination towards new and experimental music, free improvisation, and collaborating with other art forms. Also a singer, Zan has even begun composing his own songs for cello and voice!
When asked about teaching Zan said, “I like to bring my own creative spirit to teaching, encouraging students to approach the instrument from a creative basis and prioritize the development of their personal voice.” When not playing the cello, singing, or teaching, Zan enjoys many hobbies like hiking, meditation/yoga, playing basketball, and of course listening to new music, trying to discover the latest alternative rock bands!
Welcome, Ashley and Zan!
–Minna Choi, Fellowship Program Director/Resident Musician
What was your favorite thing about summer camp?
“Playing my violin”
“Climbing up the waterfall”
“Playing capture the flag”
“The swim meet”
“Costume night”
“The talent show”
“The treasure hunt”
“The food!”
These were snippets of CMW students’ responses upon leaving our Summer Camp week with the Chorus of Westerly at Ogontz Camp in New Hampshire.
My own favorite thing about camp this year was getting to jump into a summer camp that had a long history of successful summers, but was open —and interested—in continuing to change and improve every year.
This year, the Chorus of Westerly’s collaboration with Community MusicWorks was part of the change. CMW students jumped into the mix as cabin counselors, as field day competitors, as leaders of the evening reflection before taps, and as talent show performers.
 
For 7 days, students practiced, worked on chamber music, rhythm & improvisation skills. The group created a new ensemble piece inspired by the soundscape of our environment: one where we could hear crickets, birds, thunderstorms and waterfalls throughout the day and night.
Jessenia, a CMW student serving on our Board said,
“Meeting new people is one of the best parts of camp. I have made new friends and I hope to keep in touch with them. I also realize that I underestimated our younger CMW students. They’re amazing musicians, and they even taught me how to have fun and enjoy the childhood I have left! I have had so much fun and even though I wasn’t even aware I’d be a counselor, I came to love the job and the girls in my cabin. Ogontz has taught me that even the people you least expect, can become like family.”
It was magical to see a full-blown overnight summer music camp in this 8th year of CMW’s own summer camp programming. I’m looking forward to seeing how this unique collaboration between two fantastic organizations grows from here.
–Rachel Panitch, CMW Summer Camp leader and Fellowship Alum
All photos graciously shared by the Chorus of Westerly! To see more photos (and videos!) check out their Facebook Page.
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