Today we turn the senior spotlight on Heather, violin student and member of Phase III.  She shares some fond memories of CMW and some of her plans for the future.  We’ll be checking in with all our graduating seniors during the countdown to the end of the season.  If you missed the first Senior Spotlight installment with fellow senior and violin student Alana, you can find it here.  

What’s next for you?

I’ll be starting as a student at Brown University in the fall! So far I’m thinking about majoring in either neuroscience or public policy, eventually leading to pre-med or pre-law. I am looking forward to exploring and finding areas that interest me the most.

Can you tell us your favorite CMW Memory?

There are three CMW memories that stand out to me. I remember a workshop at the William Dabate Elementary School with a group known as Caravan Serai featuring Pakistani singer, Arif Lohar. The music was amazing to jam to. Many of us in the audience were invited to go up and dance with them. I could feel the adrenaline rushing as the audience was clapping and cheering. It was a perfect combination of music, dance, and fun!

Another favorite memory is when Alana and I organized a Michael Jackson tribute in June a year after his death. We dressed in black and white, wore fedora hats, and performed songs such as “Billie Jean,” “Thriller,” and “Smooth Criminal.” Sebastian and a former fellow, Carole Bestvater, joined us. I also remember our “Happy Farmer” skit. I played the role of Robert Schumann and Alana played the role of Clara Schumann. According to the skit that we wrote for the song, a farmer (who was happily working in the fields) inspired Robert to write a piece. Carole Bestvater, acted as the Happy Farmer. (By the way, we used British accents to sound more sophisticated!)

What was your favorite performance experience?

I loved playing the Bach Double Concerto this fall at the John Carter Brown Library with Alana and the rest of the CMW players. I’ve heard and loved the piece for so many years and never thought I would have the experience of performing it with my friend and the CMW staff. 

How will music be a part of your future?

I plan to take private lessons and either participate in Brown’s Orchestra or Chamber Music Program. 

How has CMW shaped your life?

Community MusicWorks has been an important part of life and has made me who I am today. Not only did I have the opportunity to learn how to play the violin and perform around Rhode Island, but I also met amazing people with whom I have formed long-lasting friendships. Community MusicWorks is like family. We are all united and help each other out. Since the age of seven, I learned from my peers and teachers. As I look back, I feel very fortunate to have been a CMW student and look forward to visiting from time to time. 

Come support Heather and all of our graduating seniors in their final performances at the End-of-Year Gala!

Tuesday, May 24 at 6pm
Providence Career and Technical Academy
41 Fricker Street, Providence 

As we enter the home stretch to the end of the 2015/16 school year we’ll be featuring a series of interviews with our graduating seniors here on the blog.  In today’s interview violin Fellow Josie Davis talks with violin student and Phase III member Alana about her time at CMW and her plans for the future.

How old were you when you started taking lessons at CMW?

I was 7 when I began playing violin with CMW.

Can you share a favorite CMW memory?

My favorite CMW memory is either the New York trip or a workshop with Daniel Bernard Roumain when he put his scroll on my head and played in that position on my head!

How has CMW shaped your life?

I could talk forever on this subject. CMW has sort of had the Butterfly Effect on me. If I hadn’t joined CMW, I would be a totally different person. I have learned the value of being in a community, have been fortunate to learn different aspects of music, and I have met amazing friends, who are both teachers and students. CMW has been the gateway to other outside experiences such as YUGA [Youth United for Global Action and Awareness] and Apple Hill which have impacted me greatly in their own ways. Through Phase 2, I have obtained the skills of public speaking and discussing topics with others that I probably wouldn’t normally have outside of the program. Music itself has made me a more empathetic person and learning it with other youth has a lot to do with that. Even on a smaller more practical level, learning music through CMW has benefited me in school too. I have always been more knowledgeable on musical concepts in my music courses at school. Basically, CMW has touched my life in every aspect.

Describe a performance highlight…

One of my favorite performance experiences was playing a duet with my long-time teacher, Sebastian Ruth during a Skillz Hour. We played Sonata I by Jean-Marie Leclair. The performance was strong and it’s one that I can vividly remember being fun. At the end of the performance, the crowd applauded and smiled. Jesse Holstein then took the mic and requested that the audience give us another round of applause. Then, Jesse highlighted his memory of a younger me that wanted to quit playing violin and went on to express how happy he was that I didn’t. It was really nice.

How will music be apart of your life next year and beyond?

I cannot see myself creating a career with music mostly because it is so hard to make it in that field. However, I do plan to still play, whether that be in a chamber group with friends or a local orchestra. I refuse to completely give up my playing after investing so much time into it and tapping into a talent that I genuinely enjoy.

What are your plans next year?

My plans right now are sort of up in the air. I will either be here in Rhode Island or in Portland, Oregon. Whichever destination, I will be studying English/Writing and music.

Alana in a 2014 performance of Gonzalo Grau’s Fantasia in New York City

What is American culture?  This is the question violinist William Harvey asked the students of the Daily Orchestra Program to consider on Friday April 8th.  The answers ranged from “obesity” to “accepting of all different kinds of people.”  Using that question as a jumping off point William Harvey led the Daily Orchestra students in an hour-long workshop designed to provoke reflection and discussion on the topic.  This workshop was part of a year-long project by his nonprofit organization Cultures in Harmony.  William is spending the year visiting each of the 50 American states, asking citizens to reflect on American culture, leading workshops and performances on the topic, and documenting the experience along the way.  

Our students definitely had some strong opinions on this topic, but I could tell William was giving them things to consider that they had not thought about before.  They were intrigued.  They dazzled at the agility of his fingers as he played an elaborately ornamented version of the Star Spangled Banner, but then they thoughtfully pondered the question of “Is this piece American?”  “How could it not be, since it’s our National Anthem?!” was the response of some, but William took our minds one step further with “If the composer of the music was actually from England, can the music still be American?”  Good question!

What about the rap artist Silentó’s popular hit “Watch Me (Whip/NaeNae)”?  After William got our students dancing in their seats with his virtuosic solo violin rendition of the song, he asked us “Is the music Classical music?”  What if it’s played on a violin?  Does playing it on an instrument associated with classical music transfer the title of “Classical” to the music?  If it is Classical music, can it still be American?

As you might expect our students never came to a clear consensus on any of these questions, but that wasn’t really the point.  The point was to get them thinking about the question and to open their minds to questions they might not have considered before.  William Harvey certainly accomplished his mission, and I think he also won the heartfelt admiration of all of our students!  I’m sure we’ll be hearing more of their thoughts as the weeks continue.

As for me, like my students I’ve really come up with more questions than answers when pondering the topic.  Whether we are a melting pot or a mixing bowl, we are a vast and diverse nation.  We draw cultural influences and inspiration from everywhere, which can be a beautiful thing, except perhaps when we forget to acknowledge and honor the places and people from where those traditions came.  I would like to think that American culture is a culture in which you can comfortably ask the question “What is American culture,” never come up with a clear answer, but somehow still feel at peace with that lack of clarity, comforted that if nothing else ours is a culture that provides ample space for its wide variety of people and opinions.

–Lisa Barksdale, Resident Musician

You can read blog posts and see videos from 13 other completed states on the American Culture page of the Cultures in Harmony website.  Watch for the Rhode Island video soon, and you might see our students in action!

Last Thursday March 24th the Daily Orchestra Program gave an informal concert to friends and family at Federal Hill House.  The students had been working hard since the performance party in January, and they were excited to share their repertoire, which included a version of Dona Nobis Pacem involving both singing and playing, an arrangement of the second movement of Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet, and a class favorite “Moonlight Tango” by Richard Meyer.  Several students also performed solo pieces they had been practicing in their private lessons.

Cello Student Nicole performs a duet with Daily Orchestra Program Director Adrienne Taylor.

As our students continue to grow they are starting to tackle more complicated pieces.  For this performance our violins divided into two separate sections, first violin and second violin (just like professional orchestras!).  The new pieces also showcased a variety of techniques, like going back and forth between pizzicato and arco (plucking with fingers and using the bow) and trilling from one note to another (a fast movement for the left hand fingers).

It’s been exciting to see our students’ progress over the course of this school year.  I can see them growing quickly both as musicians and as thoughtful human beings.  We have some exciting projects in the works for our final performances of the year, and we look forward to sharing them with you at the end of the year Gala on May 24th!

–Lisa Barksdale, Resident Musician

The CMW Players are performing John Tavener’s rich piece, “The Protecting Veil,” in two events over the weekend of March 19-20. Writer and CMW board member Jill Pearlman spoke to Resident Musician Adrienne Taylor about her connection to the piece. 

As a college student, Adrienne Taylor heard “The Protecting Veil,” an extended meditative piece by British composer John Tavener, and the sumptuous music lodged inside her.  It wasn’t the most obvious for a teenager – it is ethereal, restrained, and without giving away the story line, the cello plays the voice of the Mother of God.  “It was so beautiful,” Taylor remembers.  “It became one of the pieces that I thought of as a dream to play.”

On March 19 and 20, CMW Players will perform the piece to Taylor’s great pleasure and satisfaction.  It is also a testament to her artistic commitment: she proposed it to CMW, arranged the score for a full orchestra, and of course, she is stepping into the dream of the solo cello.

John Tavener, who died in 2013 at age 69, was an unusual and powerful composer, knighted, popular and religiously inspired.  Among his many works was “Songs for Athene,” which closed the funeral ceremony for Princess Diana. His originality, the force of his own metaphysical questing, could be consuming to everyone, including himself.

A convert to Russian Orthodox Church, Tavener became fixated in the late 1980s on a story commemorated in a holiday, Feast of the Protecting Veil.  As Adrienne says, you don’t have to know the story to understand the music, but it helps: One evening in the 10th century, Greek believers in Constantinople saw an apparition: Mary and a host of saints and a large, glittering veil that she held over them.  The Greeks were facing an attack by the Saracens, and the following day the Greeks prevailed.  A visual image of divine care was given shape.

Crucially, this veil was seen, not heard, and Tavener the musician had to find language that would translate the visual into sound.  Tavener has said that he wanted to paint with music, to make a lyrical “icon” using the music of the cello as a brush.  Tavener built his composition on the eight stages of Mary’s life conveyed in eight sections based on eight Byzantine tones, starting with F major and descending down the scale.  It lets go of traditional formality, and becomes 45 minutes of sound textures, extending, shimmering cello with a full orchestra.

As Taylor explains the structure, she cautions against thinking it “difficult.” She spent months working on the arrangement: “That meant a lot of late nights, a lot of coffee and sugar,” she says.  In its structure, she found the unexpected.  “The ideas Tavener uses are very simple,” Taylor says.  “The same ones come back again and again.  He stretches them out, inverts them, but all along, the structure follows a very clear pattern.  Often you need to take a course in modern music to listen to music written in 20th century.  I don’t think you need to know something about music to understand this.”

She loops back to the underlying concept of voice: “This is telling a story using solo cello as a voice.”  Yet often Tavener alters the voice to the listener’s surprise.  The composition pushes the limits of the cello by utilizing its total range: Tavener asked Stephen Isserlis, the famed British cellist for whom he wrote the piece, what the highest notes he could play were, then wrote seven or eight minutes in that very highest range.  Taylor had the good fortune to meet Isserlis in Boston, and discuss cellist to cellist certain intricacies of the playing.

The other slippery quality of “Protecting Veil” might be its intense religiosity.  While listeners might hear the Orthodox content, Taylor feels its deep, transcendent, overflowing spirituality.  “Radiance is spreading out from the cello, and the orchestra is an extension of her protecting veil.”

It is a profound experience of going beyond.  Even Taylor playing the cello at the center can find herself so deeply immersed that she becomes almost lost in the music, not only as a musician navigating the upper strings on her instrument’s neck, but as a human.

“Even practicing, it is almost meditational.  There are moments of ecstasy when I go almost beyond myself,” she says.  “As a listener, you don’t have to be connected to a religion, you only need to come with a feeling of openness, without expectations.  This is spiritual music, and everybody has a sense of the spiritual.  By being human, you know everything you need to know.”

–Jill Pearlman
Providence-based writer Jill Pearlman worked in music journalism in New York for over a decade.  She’s currently tapping some of her experiences for her novel, Clio’s Mobile Home. www.jillpearlman.com

The CMW Players perform Wojciech Kilar’s “Orawa” and John Tavener’s “The Protecting Veil” featuring Adrienne Taylor, cello soloist.

Saturday, March 19 at 4pm
Blessed Trinity Church
1340 Plymouth Ave, Fall River, MA
Admission is $10

Sunday, March 20 at 4pm
Granoff Center 
Brown University
Admission is free and sponsored by:

 

“When I practice with all of my friends, it makes me really happy and it makes me feel like I just want to play more and see more and learn more.”

 – Ryleigh, a Newport String Project violin student

This quote from our student Ryleigh illustrates beautifully what participating in the Newport String Project means in her life – the joy and wellbeing that comes from musical togetherness and how learning new things inspires more curiosity.

Ryleigh’s observation also reveals a sense of momentum and wanting to build on things that are going well – more and more and more… We can all relate to having growth experiences where the world suddenly seemed a little bigger or being struck by a moment of insight that brought new horizons into view. It is a theme that is especially relevant to the Newport String Project in its third season.

The Newport String Project has now grown to include three class groups of students (ages 5-11) who participate in our after-school programming at the Dr Martin Luther King Community Center. With each new group, there is new energy and a new set of complexities to navigate. It’s a time when we are doing all we can to establish cultural norms for the program – a supportive and joyful atmosphere, a family-centered approach, strong discipline around attendance etc. And of course, we are also seeing cultural patterns take hold all by themselves – younger siblings aspiring to learn everything their older siblings can do. The older siblings teaching the younger ones the tricks they have picked up, but also motivated to stay “ahead of the game.” We are fortunate to enjoy a focused presence at the MLK Center in the heart of Newport – a space that allows us to learn about and engage with the community in a very meaningful way.

With each season, the concert series is a process of discovery. From string quartets at the Quaker Meeting House to barndances to chamber music for strings and percussion at the local coffee shop, we dig into this question of how live musicmaking can transform community spaces, maybe even create a moment of surprise or playfulness in someone’s day. The connections we make with audiences at our concerts are a great source of inspiration and feedback as we think about programming. It has been encouraging to see how the performer-audience relationship become more dynamic since our first season. It is an exciting time of experimentation with new venues, as well as enjoying the rituals of venues where we play regularly.

Community MusicWorks’ focus on model sharing has created a vital opportunity for many professional musicians “to play more and see more and learn more.” As Emmy and I progress further in the life of the Newport String Project, we are constantly learning about what works (and what doesn’t) and this is accompanied by a sense of expanding possibility. What might we accomplish if we could add an administrative staff member to our team? What if we could grow our community of volunteers? What if we could have a string quartet of resident musicians – how might that change the experience of living and growing up in Newport? Potential gives us a smile and a wave from the distance!

Year three of the project means that things are no longer brand new, a lot has been achieved and yet these are still very early days. We spend a lot of time living in that hectic space in between “what went well today?” and “what’s next?” – often exciting and rewarding, but sometimes not a comfortable place to be. As with any learning experience, new more challenging questions come up. Dreaming big needs to be tempered by understanding what is sustainable. We share in what I think is a familiar experience for a lot of our colleagues who are doing similar work. How to scaffold the growth of these organizations in a way that supports long-term investment by musicians, families and the community is a critical conversation for all of us. This is fundamentally optimistic long-range work connected to a big social purpose, requiring lots of support, advice and investment. Carving out spaces for students (and teaching artists) to create, innovate, practice their art, reflect – essentially, to thrive – is a bold task and one that needs attention to all the nuts-and-bolts details of resource development. Everyone – musicians, families, audiences, supporters – has a role to play in this conversation… Here’s to the next round of Big Questions!

–Ealaín McMullin, Director, Newport String Project

On Friday February 12, 2016, Phase II was invited to the opening night of the Providence Children’s Film Festival at the RISD Museum. Phase III was given the opportunity to open the event with the piece Drowning By Numbers by Michael Nyman. The directors of the program introduced the main purpose of the Providence Children’s Film Festival and also expressed how happy they were to be a part of it.

Following these presentations they showed the film Landfill Harmonic. This film is about a musical project that started in Paraguay.  The children in the story come from a town named Cateura. They live in very harsh conditions next to the main landfill of one of the major cities in Paraguay,  and their houses are not the best places to live in. These children are given the opportunity to play music on instruments made from recycled materials scavenged and forged together by one of the members of the community. In short the film tells the story about how this “Recycled Orchestra” becomes famous in the world, and they share their story.

The film gives the message that art and/or music are a basic human need. I agree with that because without music or any art life would be pretty dull. The arts are something that make each person unique, and they bring us together. I think CMW is contributing in spreading this message. CMW is also giving the opportunity to lots of children in the community to learn how to play classical music and to be able to appreciate arts in the community.

I very much enjoyed the film and the event. I found it to be a great connection to the work Community Music Works is doing in Providence.

–Jessenia Grijalva, Phase II student and CMW board member

Our fourth Sonata Series concert of the season is coming up this Thursday February 18th.  We are looking forward to another cozy hour spent listening to pieces by Benjamin Britten and Ludwig van Beethoven in RISD Museum’s Grand Gallery.

Viola Fellow Hannah Ross will perform Lachrymae: Reflections on a Song of Dowland, op. 48 by Benjamin Britten.  This haunting work (literally translated as “Tears”) was composed for violist William Primrose in the year 1950, but it takes its theme from a melody written approximately 300 years prior, a melody by notoriously melancholy English Renaissance composer John Dowland.  Interestingly, for a piece that is essentially a theme and variations, the theme does not appear until the end.

Violin Fellow Kate Outterbridge will perform Beethoven’s Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 7. The Sonata is in the key of C minor, a key Beethoven is famous for popularizing perhaps most famously in his Fifth Symphony and “Pathetique” Piano Sonata.  This sonata is appropriately stormy, and Kate remarks, “I love how turbulent and gutsy the piece is!  It is really fun to play!”

Both Hannah and Kate will perform with pianist Ben Nacar.

Sonata Series Event
Thursday February 18th, 7:00pm
RISD Museum Grand Gallery
Admission to the museum and concert is free

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working with our teenage group, Phase II, on the “Sonic Meditations” by composer Pauline Oliveros. (For a great article on Pauline’s work, see http://soundamerican.org/on-deep-listening). Through these text based scores, we’ve been trying to focus on attentive listening and non-judgmental perception. These are not easily attainable concepts for most, but the students are progressing surprisingly well. At first, our meditation attempts were riddled with uncontrollable giggling, but a week later, we were so wrapped up in our successful group meditation that we unknowingly went past the time parents were supposed to pick everyone up. Through the Oliveros exercises, I’m preparing the kids for a performance of André Cormier’s “Cratères d’Impact”. André’s piece calls for a series of complex sustained tones to be played over 22 minutes with lots of silence in between. My hope is that our meditations will allow them to perform this piece as a shared experience with the audience, shedding all (or at least some) self-consciousness they might have possessed before this endeavor.

Phase II in sonic meditation

Also on this program will be a piece that I have composed. I wrote a small idea down for this concert and feel very lucky to have such open and willing musicians to play it. The work is basically a meditation on the note E-flat and some of its overtones. Every note, or fundamental, has a series of notes that make up the defining character of that specific tone. These overtones are sometimes difficult to single out, even for highly trained musicians, but if you listen very intently, you can pick out these notes, which can in turn bring you much deeper into the sound produced. In “finding/obscuring,” I’ve directed the cellos to play their E flats emphasizing different overtones through the use of a special bow technique. While the cellos struggle to get their instruments to make these tones speak, the violinists play those exact notes, but just slightly off. This finding and obscuring of tones (hence the title) should result in moments of crystal clear harmony, mixed with sparks of shimmering dissonance.

The stunning centerpiece of the program is one of my absolute favorite compositions for string quartet, Jürg Frey’s “String Quartet No. 2”. It combines unconventional string playing along with ghostly humming by the performers. It is rarely performed and should not be missed. Hope to see you there.

–Laura Cetilia
Media Lab Co-Director/Resident Musician and Curator, Ars Subtilior

Sunday, February 7, 2016 at 3pm
Providence Public Library
150 Empire Street – Ship Room

It was a real treat to be in the company of so many CMW family members recently for the annual Alternative Models fellowship seminar*. What a remarkable intentional community that welcomes the ongoing participation of so many interesting–and interested–individuals! By a quick count, I noticed 1. current staff members, 2. current board members, 3. current fellows, 4. former staff, 5. former board members, 6. former fellows, and even 7. a former student visiting while home from college on winter break. This learning community aspect of CMW–a culture of supporting professional colleagues–is probably one of the under-publicized aspects of the organization’s annual programming, and definitely one of my favorites!

–Heath Marlow
Director, Sistema Fellowship Resource Center
New England Conservatory

*Learn more about the Alternative Models Seminar on Heath’s blog.