With funding from the Prince Charitable Trusts, CMW has undertaken a fascinating research project this spring: exploring the feasibility of creating additional music education opportunities for youth in Newport, RI. What could an after-school music program look like like in Newport, given that city's unique demographics, geography, resources, and interest groups?
Led by Ariana, Ealain, Emmy, and Robin, a large group convened at CMW on Friday, May 11 to learn about their research to date and to discuss four potential music education models, each presented by a Fellow.
Next up, the conversation moves to Newport where the Fellows will present their findings and ideas for feedback on Wednesday evening, May 30. If you are interested in attending, or know someone in Newport who would be interested to attend, please see this flier.
In mid-June, the Fellows will summarize and document this exploration in a document that will be mailed off to the Prince Charitable Trusts.
It's time to order your stylish, do-good, feel-good CMW hoodie!
What a perfect way to show your support for Community MusicWorks. Here are two important reasons why: 1) all proceeds support CMW youth programs, and 2) wearing the CMW hoodie will help spark your neighbor's interest in your favorite transformative organization.
For a $25 donation ($11 is tax deductible), you will receive a cozy cotton/poly light gray hoodie emblazoned with "music works" on the front and the CMW logo on the back. Available sizes range from youth small to adult extra-extra large. You can choose between a pullover and a zip-up style.
Order online now, indicating the size and style you would like in the box marked "designation." Checks may be mailed directly to Community MusicWorks. Please include a note indicating that payment is intended for a hoodie).
You can pick up your hoodie at the CMW office, or add $3 per hoodie to cover CMW's mailing costs.
Pianist and CMW adviser Jonathan Biss will return to Providence next month to present the second of nine annual all-Beethoven recitals that he is very generously donating to CMW. Over nine years, he will eventually record all 32 Beethoven sonatas for Onyx Records; the first disc, containing music performed in Providence last May, has already been released. Jonathan has been writing about his experience with this ambitious recording project, and you can find his thoughtful essays on his website.
We have had a long and fruitful relationship with Jonathan, dating back to his first visit to Providence in November 2004 when he performed the Brahms Piano Quintet with the Providence String Quartet at the West End Recreation Center Gym and also at The RISD Museum. Fortuitously, music critic Alex Ross was in the audience for the gym concert and wrote about his experience as part of his essay on the state of American music education in The New Yorker in September 2006.
Jonathan rehearsing with the PSQ in 2004. Photo by Arthur Zachai.
If you would like to join us for Jonathan's performance on Sunday, May 20 at The RISD Museum, please visit CMW's website calendar for more event information.
Minna and I would like to announce the arrival of our baby daughter, Juna Maya Ruth, born on Wednesday evening April 18, a bit earlier than expected but healthy all the same. Minna and baby are doing well, and Juna Maya is hanging out with the good folks in the hospital until she's become accustomed to the world a bit more.
Adrienne Taylor will be performing music for cello and piano by Britten, Prokofiev and Debussy at the Boston Athenaeum with pianist Aaron Jackson on Tuesday evening, May 22 at 6 pm. The concert is free, and you can find the details here.
Along with seminars during the day, the musicians (including program director Miriam Fried, pictured) participated in CMW's Youth Salon on Friday evening and performed Schubert's Cello Quintet at an event for CMW supporters on Saturday evening.
Over Easter weekend, concerts in Providence and Amherst (MA) by Jesse and Heath, with old friends Jeff Louie and Dmitry Kustanovich, raised more than $3,000 for CMW's Fred Kelley Memorial Scholarship Fund. As Jesse told those who had turned out to hear a program of Brahms, Mozart and Schubert, this fund will help pay for four CMW students to attend the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music this summer. As a pre-formed string quartet, they are already hard at work on a Shostakovich string quartet to perform in New Hampshire in July.
Enjoy some Mozart, as performed by Jesse and Dmitry at the Bell Street Chapel.
