The Alumni Fellowship is midway through its inaugural year, and Alum fellows AlexisMarie Nelson and Liam Hopkins have been busy!
Centered around three pillars: learning modules focused on aspects of organizational development, teaching, and creative practice, the Alumni Fellowship program is designed to be flexible to the interests and input of each fellow.
In September, the Alumni Fellows dove into big ideas with a learning module on Education, Artistry, and Social Justice taught by staff members Sebastian Ruth and Ashley Frith. Joined by Teaching Artist Fellow Kamyron Williams, the group met weekly and read texts by John Dewey, Claudia Rankine, Maxine Greene, Bayo Okomolafe and others. According to the Fellows, the discussions inspired by the texts were energizing and thought-provoking. The module wrapped up with a podcast recording (Stay tuned! Editing in progress.) of a conversation on education, artistry, and social justice.
Alumni Fellows record the first CMW podcast.
Liam and Alexis are now a month into their second learning module on Teaching Methods with Chloë Kline, (CMW’s Education Director) examining different approaches for string pedagogy and music education.
For teaching experience, Alexis and Liam assist with group classes and mentor individual students in the Daily Orchestra Program and the Tuesday program. At this point in the year, they have become familiar figures in many of the learning ensembles and have built a trusting rapport with each of their mentees.
Liam, who assists Artist-in-Residence Kevin “Big Lux” Lowther’s weekly hip-hop/pop music class, said:
“I’m really invigorated by the groove I’ve settled into with my classes. After several months with the same students we feel comfortable enough with each other to be really open and brave in our collective playing and learning.
This feeling really came together last Monday in the class I teach with Kevin Lowther. After a semester spent working on improv and pop/hip-hop violin playing the class had what felt like our first proper jam session. I laid down a bass line and everyone took turns soloing. One student joined my rhythm section by drumming on his violin and it felt in that moment that we really blossomed and got that magical feeling of synchronicity that makes playing music with others so special.”
Alexis has been working with the Youth Alliance, the Daily Orchestra Program’s chamber music group. The Youth Alliance meets four days a week to focus on playing chamber music and look at other aspects of music more deeply. In their time with Alexis, the students have been exploring the connection between storytelling and music using improvisation.
Alexis leads a rehearsal with CMW’s Youth Alliance
In the realm of creative practice, Alexis has been taking regular lessons on viola and working on several musical projects with the goal of performing in the near future. She has also been incorporating Alexander Technique work in her practice, assisted by regular sessions with Resident Musician and certified Alexander Technique teacher, Lisa Sailer.
Liam has been working on composition projects with mentoring from composer and former Resident Musician Laura Cetilia. In addition, he spends time practicing bass guitar, exploring different styles of music, and performing with his band around town.
The return to CMW has been a homecoming of sorts for Liam and Alexis, with a highlight for both fellows being their work with CMW’s teen group, Phase II. Phase II was a memorable part of their own experience as students and returning to it as part of the planning team has been exciting and filled with learning.
Alexis reports:
“So far, the Alumni Fellowship has been a fun, illuminating, and educational experience! It’s been awesome to see all the ways CMW has evolved since I was a student and being on the teaching end has shown me how much intention, time, and care goes into keeping programs like this going.
While I love being involved in all of the ensembles and groups, I’ve been especially excited to be back in the Phase II space, watching them play in chamber groups, and having weekly discussions!”
We are thrilled to have Liam and Alexis back at CMW in these capacities, learning, sharing, and contributing to our community. Look for them this spring as they help guide upcoming student projects and appear in MusicWorks Collective performances!
—Minna Choi, Fellowship Director and Resident Musician
“We believe music-making should be radically participatory, driven by the audience as much as the musicians.”
Lauren Latessa, cellist and CMW Fellowship Program graduate (2012-2014), directs the Iris Music Project, which integrates professional musicians within retirement communities, nursing homes, and other healthcare institutions.
Recently, the project’s Iris Piano Trio discussed collaborating with their community to create programming and adapting to constraints brought on by Covid restrictions in their work at the Charles E. Smith Life Communities in Rockville, Maryland.
Dorcas International Institute of Rhode Island is a non-profit that provides programs and services to immigrants, refugees, and those looking to overcome cultural, educational, economic, and language barriers. Dorcas International has worked to empower newcomers for 100 years now and strives to create a welcoming environment for all who come to settle here in the Ocean State. Thank you to Baha Sadr and the Dorcas team for this on-going collaboration.
Providence Public Library (PPL) is a 146-year-old nonprofit corporation providing free public library services through its rich and historic physical and digital collections, extensive information resources, thought-provoking exhibitions, impactful educational programs, and expert staff. PPL is continually transforming and focused on providing equally transformative experiences for all Rhode Islanders. The Library is actively expanding its reach through statewide collaborations and serving as an open and supportive teaching and learning place where communities can connect, experience, create and achieve, whether in the physical or virtual realms.
Jesse Holstein, violinist and violist, has been a Resident Musician at CMW since 2001. He was a founding member of the Providence String Quartet. Prior to studying with Marilyn McDonald at Oberlin and James Buswell at New England Conservatory, he worked with Philipp Naegele in Northampton, MA. An active recitalist, orchestral and chamber musician, Jesse is currently concertmaster of the New Bedford Symphony. He has performed at the Bravo! Festival, the Montana Chamber Music Festival, the Bay Chamber Concerts, the Worcester Chamber Music Society, The South Coast Chamber Music Series, the Rhode Island Chamber Music Concerts, and the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music, among others. In 2009 Jesse was a Violin Professeur at L’Ecole de Musique, Dessaix Baptiste in Haiti and is currently on faculty at Brown University. One of his interests is how Buddhist mindfulness practice and meditation intersects with teaching and performing music.
Vocalist Nima Mehri is originally from Iran and grew up in Tehran. In 2019, Mehri moved to the United States to “beautiful Rhode Island.” He has an electrical engineering background, but Mehri’s passion is art; he loves design and architecture and is especially interested in interior design. In 2021, Mehri made steps to pursue his passion and was admitted to Rhode Island School of Design. Mehri says, “Iranian art plays a huge role in my development as a person in general. I adore Iranian traditional music and songs, and I’ve played them on guitar and sung these songs since my teen years. Though I have never formally studied music, it is one of my biggest passions.” Accompanied by the MusicWorks Collective, Mehri performs “Gol-e Sangam,” which means “my stone flower.” This iconic Persian language song is about someone being in love yet facing rejection. “Gol-e Sangam” was first performed in the 1970s based on the lyrics of Iranian poet Bijan Samandar, and is very popular in Iran, Afghanistan and in the region in general and is performed widely and in different versions by many singers. “Gol-e Sangam,” says Mehri, “is a song close to my heart.”
Syrian-American Kareem Roustom is an Emmy-nominated composer whose genre crossing collaborations include music commissioned by conductor Daniel Barenboim and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Kronos Quartet, arrangements for pop icons Shakira and Tina Turner, as well as a recent collaboration with acclaimed British choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh. Roustom has been composer-in-residence at the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago, the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming, and with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen in Germany. For the 2021-2022 season Roustom is composer-in-residence with the Mannheim Philharmonic. Roustom’s music has been performed by ensembles that include the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony, the Boulez Ensemble, the Deutsch Oper Berlin, The Crossing choir, Lorelei Ensemble, A Far Cry, and at renowned festivals and halls such as the BBC Proms, the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Carnegie Hall, the Verbier Festival, the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, and others. Roustom has received many commissions and has also been recorded by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester (Berlin), and the Philharmonia Orchestra (London).
Vocalist Habib Shah lives in Providence after relocating from Afghanistan. Shah chose to perform the song “Biyaadi dal” because the lyrics tell of “someone missing something, like I miss my country.” This Songs of Refuge collaboration with the MusicWorks Collective is Habib Shah’s first appearance as a vocalist before an audience.
Vocalist Karine Tukhikyan is a refugee from Russia. She and her family were resettled by Dorcas International of Rhode Island in 2020. Tukhikyan loves to sing and play the guitar, and is active in her local Slavic church, saying “Christ and Christianity are the most important part of my life.” Her performance of “Prayer for Ukraine” highlights the concern and caring that Tukhikyan holds for the Ukrainian people, which she underscores by participating in several projects to aid Ukrainian citizens. Learn more here: https://www.facebook.com/baking.for.Ukraine and https://www.instagram.com/baking_for_ukraine/
Our final Sonata Series event of the season features works by two American composers— William Grant Still and George Walker—which may be new to some listeners.
Featuring perfomers Minna Choi, Kamyron Williams, and Andrei Baumann.
George Walker’s Sonata for Cello and Piano is rhapsodic and complex and pushes performers to their limits in musical expression and technique. In contrast, William Grant Still’s Pastorela and Summerland are vignettes of sorts, conveying Still’s musical musings inspired by scenes of wilderness and the landscapes of the American West. Guest artist Andrei Baumann, piano, joins resident musician Minna Choi, violin, and Cello Fellow Kamyron Williams for this program. You won’t want to miss this!
An active soloist, chamber musician, Andrei Baumann has performed extensively in the USA, Europe, Canada and Venezuela. As winner of the 2009 Borromeo String Quartet Guest Artist Award, he performed with the quartet in Jordan Hall on January 29th, 2009. His Carnegie Hall debut at Weill Recital Hall occurred in May 2008 with violinist Lily Francis as part of the Distinctive Debuts series. Other notable performances include a solo recital on the Sundays Live Concert Series at Los Angeles County Arts Museum which was broadcast by KCSN, 88.5 FM, solo recitals at the Crocker Art Museum Classical Music Series in California, performances at Caramoor Festival and with Itzhak Perlman at the Perlman Music Program. Andrei has performed in masterclasses for such distinguished artists as Elisso Wirssaladze, Pavel Gililov, Leon Fleisher, Claude Frank and Marc Durand. Among the numerous festivals he has participated in are Corsi in Sermoneta, Italy; Ost-West Musikfest in Krems, Austria; Internationaler Kammermusikkurs in Böhlen, Germany; Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland; Banff Centre for the Arts and Orford Arts Centre in Canada; and in the USA, Aspen Music Festival, Perlman Music Program.
Recent performances have included a Mothers Day performance (2017) of the Grieg Piano Concerto with Peter Jaffe and the Auburn Symphony, and numerous chamber music performances with cellist Susan Lamb Cook and friends. Mr. Baumann is a frequent performer at the Mondavi Center, Harris Center, Crocker Art Museum and others venues in Northern California. He also recently released a second album Miroirs, which includes works by Bach, Debussy and Ravel.
Mr. Baumann has a Masters of Music in Piano Performance from New England Conservatory in Boston, a Künstlerischer Ausbildung Diploma from the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Stuttgart, Germany, and a Bachelor of Music degree at the Glenn Gould School of The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, Canada. His most influential teachers have been Andre Laplante, Jamie Saltman and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein.
Mr. Baumann has been a piano faculty member at the Rivers School Conservatory in Weston, MA, Head of the Piano Department at Camp Encore/Coda in Sweden, Maine, and piano faculty at the Sacramento Youth Symphony Summer Chamber Music Workshop. Additionally, he has been a jury member at the A. Ramon Rivera Piano Competition at Rivers School Conservatory in Weston.
Currently living in Providence, RI, Mr. Baumann performs regularly as a soloist and chamber musician with members of Community Music Works. Recent collaborations have included programs with the Newport, RI dance group Island Moving Company. He teaches locally at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School.
MINNA CHOI, violin
Minna Choi is part of the “lifer club” at CMW and serves as the Fellowship Program Director. A graduate of Brown University, Minna has been a resident musician since CMW’s opening season and was a founding member of the Providence String Quartet. She earned her Master of Music in Violin Performance from the Hartt School of Music, where she was a winner of the Miami String Quartet competition. Minna has performed with the Boston Philharmonic and Rhode Island Philharmonic, and with the Borromeo, Turtle Island, and St. Lawrence String Quartets and violist Kim Kashkashian. Influential teachers include Eric Rosenblith, Katie Lansdale, and Lois Finkel. Minna’s interest in education began in her undergraduate years while studying the works of John Dewey, and she is passionate about music education as a vehicle for youth development. She lives in Providence with her husband, two girls and a beloved orange tabby cat, and in her spare time enjoys finding new recipes, practicing yoga and exploring RI hikes.
KAMYRON WILLIAMS, cello
Kamyron is Teaching Artist Fellow at CMW. He is originally from Tampa (FL) where his musical training started when his best friend persuaded him to join the middle school orchestra program in order to have a class together. This spontaneous entrance into the orchestra community has since led him to an abundance of opportunities as a performer, collaborator, and educator.While Kamyron has performed on stages across the Midwest and New England, his work with diversity-oriented arts organizations, ensembles, and initiatives has garnered significant attention, in the “American Black Journal” series on PBS and NPR Michigan Radio. After both performing and leading community outreach for the Sphinx Organization, he has dedicated his musical passion to tackling the challenges of equity, attendance, and enthusiasm that classical music still struggles to overcome. Kamyron holds degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (B.M.) and the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater & Dance (M.M. and Specialist Degree).
Drafting Community MusicWorks’ newest strategic plan was a 12-month process that required inquiry and a clarification of our vision for the future. We began by codifying the deeply held values in which our organization is rooted, and from which all aspects of our work arise:
Listening: Making music is a lifelong pursuit of joy and truth. Its foundation is listening. At CMW, we value listening as a practice of community, a practice of music, a practice of respect.
Equity and Responsiveness: We value the qualities of justice, equity, fairness, and welcoming which are the hallmarks of a culture of belonging.
Creative Practice: We value each individual’s creative capability and contribution – – as musicians, as community members, and as citizens.
Continual learning: We value ongoing, reciprocal learning that is grounded in curiosity, humility, reflection, and open-mindedness.
Love and Respect: We value a community where relationships are of the utmost importance and where people are recognized and honored as individuals with a unique voice.
Community MusicWorks (CMW) creates new roles for musicians as artists, educators, and citizens concerned with the well-being of our communities. Based in the rich context of the vibrant arts scene of Providence, RI since 1997, CMW has strong leadership, deep community connections, healthy finances, and an extensive network of alumni.
Our Strategic Plan for the next five years includes several initiatives that address our physical space, pedagogy and performance activities, our commitment to racial equity, and the deepening of our work in the many concentric circles of learning communities that touch our organization.
Plans to begin construction on a building of our own, the Community MusicWorks Center, represent a major turning point for the organization, and bring with it new possibilities in community building, along with a thoughtful approach to navigating the ways in which this building changes the landscape of our neighborhood.
CMW is nationally recognized and enjoys the camaraderie of like-minded groups around the country and globally. As the classical music field is changing to incorporate a wider range of professional avenues and to make the genre more accessible, responsive, and relevant to diverse audiences, CMW is seen as a forerunner in rethinking classical music’s roles in communities.
As we embark on this new chapter, our work is happening against a backdrop of political divisiveness and deepening inequities, including an ongoing pandemic, that directly impacts our community. Thus, CMW’s longstanding commitment to racial equity work takes on an even greater urgency. We are buoyed by strengthening national discourse around racial justice and have set the course to deepening our own work in this area.
STRATEGIC AREAS OF FOCUS: 2020-2025
#1. OUR PLACE/OUR SPACE: BUILD A CULTURE OF BELONGING
Community MusicWorks is committed to creating a welcoming environment that builds a sense of belonging. This emphasis forms the basis of our teaching, performing, and community building relationships, and guides the creation of our new physical home.
OBJECTIVES
Engage parents, students, and neighbors in the planning of a facility that supports community connection and enhances the neighborhood’s musical life while honoring the history of the land on which it is built.
Create a space that offers opportunities for youth to make music, build connections, and envision powerful futures.
Establish the Community MusicWorks Center as a place for residents of and visitors to Providence to find a supportive and engaging musical community.
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#2. ANTI-RACIST PRACTICE: ADVANCE OUR COMMITMENT TO RACE EQUITY
CMW is committed to race equity and resisting the complicity and perpetuation of racism, especially in the area of classical music training and performance. Through continuous discovery, learning and commitment to the process, our work will address power dynamics as they relate to individual and collective experiences of students, teachers, staff, and the community.
OBJECTIVES
Integrate our commitment to racial equity into our pedagogy and performance.
Identify and undo racist practices by changing systems, organizational structures, policies, practices and attitudes so that power is redistributed and shared equitably.
Work toward an increasingly diverse leadership and teaching staff at CMW.
Define an antiracist framework to support the development of young people across the MusicWorks Network.
CMW is committed to continued learning and sharing regarding the impact, value, and practice of musician residencies in communities. We spark and support conversations around integrating music education, performance, and social justice practice and aim to nurture a diverse and vibrant community of practitioners.
OBJECTIVES
Establish new ways of supporting young professional musicians’ learning in and with CMW.
Support ongoing learning and growth of all staff.
Continue to be a responsive and active participant, convenor, facilitator, and thought leader in the larger field, nationally and internationally.
Share stories of CMW’s programmatic approaches so that people at large are aware of the impact of our programs.
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#4 PEDAGOGY AND PERFORMANCE: AMPLIFY CREATIVE VOICE
CMW’s distinctive pedagogical and performance practices are deeply informed by our commitment to social justice. We support the passions and professional development of our teaching artists, encourage the engagement and technical progress of our students, and deepen our responsiveness to our community and audiences.
OBJECTIVES
Support teachers to build a toolbox of anti-racist pedagogical practices and techniques that support
student agency, with a focus on improvisation and composition.
Engage CMW alumni and other community musicians as teachers, role models and eventually, leaders in the program.
Explore the full range of musical voices in the concert tradition, and apply an anti-racist and anti-oppression lens to our performance planning and practice.
Commission music that integrates performance, pedagogy, social justice goals, and expands the MusicWorks Collective’s concert life through opportunities to perform around and outside New England.
Sonata Series Event #2 is a program of rich colors and profound depths of emotion featuring violinist Sarah Kim and cellist Miguel Vasquez, and violist Sebastian Ruth joined by pianist Eliko Akahori.
This event presents Ravel’s luminous and evocative Sonata for Violin and Cello paired with Shostakovich’s haunting and monumental Viola Sonata and includes conversations with the performers.
Eliko Akahori, piano (guest artist) Eliko has appeared as a recitalist, chamber musician, and collaborative pianist in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Recent performances include recitals with Mai Motobuchi, violist in the Borromeo Quartet, and concerts with A Far Cry, Winsor Music, Cantata Singers and Music at Eden’s Edge. Ms. Akahori collaborated with Vienna Philharmonic principal flutist Karl-Heinz Schütz in recording two CDs that were released in 2014 along with a series of recitals in the U.S., Austria and Spain. She received the first prize, Coleman-Barstow Award, in the 57th Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition. Past collaborators in recitals, chamber music concerts, recordings, and radio and television broadcasts include members of the Berlin Philharmonic and the Chicago, Montreal, Boston and San Francisco Symphony Orchestras, among others. Ms. Akahori has performed in many festivals including the Banff Centre in Canada, IMAI in Maine, and the Pacific Music Festival in Japan. Ms. Akahori holds a Doctorate of Music in Collaborative Piano and Master’s degree in Music Theory, both from the New England Conservatory of Music. She is currently a senior performance faculty and director of the music performance program at Wellesley College.
Sarah Kim, violin
Sarah joined CMW as a resident musician in 2017. From 2008-2013, Sarah was a member of the Apple Hill String Quartet, resident ensemble of the Apple Hill Center for Chamber Music. Based in Kansas City from 2013-2017, Sarah enjoyed teaching a wide spectrum of students and received the 2015 Studio Teacher Award from the Missouri chapter of the American String Teachers Association. Sarah holds a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Stony Brook University, a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music, and a Bachelor of Music degree from Indiana University where her principal teachers included Pamela Frank, Phil Setzer, Peter Oundjian, and Miriam Fried.
Sebastian Ruth, viola Sebastian, a violinist and violist, is CMW’s Founder & Artistic Director. A graduate of Brown University, Sebastian has been a member of the Wild Ginger Philharmonic and the Boston Philharmonic and has performed with members of the Borromeo, Muir, Miro, Orion, and Turtle Island String Quartets, and with pianist Jonathan Biss and violist Kim Kashkashian. Influential teachers include Eric Rosenblith, Rolfe Sokol, Lois Finkel, Pamela Gearhart, Mela Tenenbaum, and Kim Kashkashian. Sebastian is the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, recognized for “forging a new, multifaceted role beyond the concert hall for the twenty-first-century musician”, and an honorary doctorate degree from Brown University. Sebastian has served as a Visiting Lecturer at the Yale School of Music, where he designed and taught courses exploring the theoretical foundations of CMW, and has served as an Assistant Professor of the Practice of Music at Brown University. His Coursera course “Music and Social Action” has had over 17,000 learners. Sebastian has spoken at the Ford Foundation, the Kennedy Center, Florida State University, TEDxProvidence, and other venues on citizen artistry, entrepreneurship, and music, and joined nine other artists as part of the RISD Museum’s Raid the Icebox NOW exhibit. Sebastian is married to violinist Minna Choi, and their two daughters, Juna Maya and Elia Ahn, are his current teachers about life.
Miguel Vásquez, cello Miguel is an active performer and educator in the New England area. Miguel has participated in several music festivals, including the Tanglewood Music Center in 2017 and the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, where he was part of their 2009-2013 tours, as well as in their Carnegie Hall concert in 2010. Miguel graduated with a Bachelor of Music in 2014 from Longy School of Music of Bard College and Emerson College in Boston, where he studied with Boston Symphony Orchestra cellist Mihail Jojatu. In 2016, he graduated with a Master’s degree in Cello Performance from the New England Conservatory where he studied with Borromeo Quartet cellist Yeesun Kim.
Click to listen to a short-and-sweet audio version of our traditional J. S. Bach extravaganza! This online Bach to the Future presentation packs all the tasty goodness of our annual overnight event into a one-hour wafer-thin ‘Bach in bite-size’ form.
PERFORMER BIOS AND PROGRAM NOTES:
ENIGMATICA is a New England-based mandolin ensemble directed by Marilynn Mair. Part chamber orchestra and part plucked-string double-quartet, Enigmatica performs a variety of music: Baroque, Brazilian, eclectic contemporary, and music written by group members and friends. The ensemble features instruments of the mandolin family — mandolin, mandola, octave mandolin and mandocello — and 6- and 7-string guitars. Ensemble members come from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New Hampshire.
CHLOË KLINE is CMW’s Education Director. Chloë’s practice focuses on the intersection of creative youth development, equity and inclusion, and the field of classical music. She believes deeply in the importance of inquiry and creative practice for young people as individuals and as community members. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in viola performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she was a student of Martha Katz. Chloë earned a Master’s degree in Arts in Education from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education in 2005, and joined CMW the following year as a member of the Fellowship Program’s pilot class. Chloë is also a faculty member with the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles National Institute.
EDEN RAYZ is a Boston-based cellist and composer. She’s most known as a session cellist and as the extreme vocalist for death metal bands Scaphism and Angel Grinder. She’s set to self-release her first EP called Corpus Vice in the coming months.
Notes from the performer on “Cello Suite No. II in D minor IV: Sarabande, Destabilized”: This version of the first half of Bach’s D minor Sarabande from his Cello Suites is improvised using Bach’s content, but Rayz’s timbral, formal, and microtonal language. Though it was recorded in roughly 3 parts, it’s still imagined as a solo cello performance, contributing to what she describes as “an additive hell.” The discomfort of the exposition slowly gives way to catharsis.
JOE DEGEORGE is a composer, musician, and sound artist living in Providence, Rhode Island. He is a member of the bands Harry and the Potters and Downtown Boys. His performances of “Switched-Off Bach” and “In Glove With Bach” are always a highlight of Bach To The Future.
Notes from the performer on “Variations on Some Invention Riffs”: In March, Kara took me to a weekend rental somewhere in rural New York that had a 19th century pipe organ installed in a barn haunted by an old organ mechanic and a sad dog. I brought my tape recorder hoping to make some tapes of my own organ performances. I had been developing a practice through the pandemic of spontaneous improvisation. I had never really spent any significant time playing a pipe organ so this was really my first intimate encounter with such an instrument. I made an hour long tape recording of spontaneous improvisation. I selected a six minute chunk of that tape in which I was riffin’ heavily on a few phrases Bach had penned in his Inventions. Maybe we can call this “Variations on some Invention Riffs?” Who knows what it actually sounded like when Bach was riffin’ on his own keyboards and writing music, but maybe this recording has some fraction of an essense of Bach’s moments of creation; a piece of the joy of inventing.
PEDRO REIS studies piano with Manabu Takasawa.
MANABU TAKASAWA is a Professor of Music at Rhode Island College.
KAMYRON WILLIAMS, a cellist and Teaching Artist Fellow at CMW, is originally from Tampa (FL) where his musical training started when his best friend persuaded him to join the middle school orchestra program in order to have a class together. This spontaneous entrance into the orchestra community has since led him to an abundance of opportunities as a performer, collaborator, and educator. While Kamyron has performed on stages across the Midwest and New England, his work with diversity-oriented arts organizations, ensembles, and initiatives has garnered significant attention, in the “American Black Journal” series on PBS and NPR Michigan Radio. After both performing and leading community outreach for the Sphinx Organization, he has dedicated his musical passion to tackling the challenges of equity, attendance, and enthusiasm that classical music still struggles to overcome. Kamyron holds degrees from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music (B.M.) and the University of Michigan School of Music, Theater & Dance (M.M. and Specialist Degree).
Violinist James Buswell greets student Roma Taitwood in a 2017 masterclass. CMW Resident Musician Jesse Holstein shares a remembrance.
On September 28th, my long-time teacher and mentor violinist James Buswell passed away at the age of 74. My first ever lesson with him was in the summer of 1993 at the Musicorda Music Festival at Mt. Holyoke College in Massachusetts, and my last was just this past spring on Zoom.
What always astounded me about Mr. Buswell was that he was such a complete artist and teacher. He was one of the great violinists of the 20th and 21st century, but what was rare about a violinist of his caliber is that he could diagnose any technical issue in one’s playing clearly and comprehensively and then vividly demonstrate possible solutions, no matter the student’s level. His musicianship was holistic and deep, and his musical choices and suggestions were always informed by an incredibly refined knowledge of style, language, color, literature, and historical context, among other considerations. Even his fingerings (what finger to use on a particular note) and bowings (what direction and articulation to use with the bow) were always crafted and curated to maximize the music’s meaning and impact.
Beyond this, he was always supportive and cared deeply for his students, and would always go the extra mile to offer advice or encouragement. Just last year, I was asked to give an online masterclass on a piece I had never performed or studied, the Poéme by Ernest Chausson. I reached out to him to see if he could share with me his edition of the piece. This alone would have been helpful and generous, but in addition to getting the pdf of his part, he called me that night and we proceeded to go over the piece together and he offered insights and suggestions for well over an hour.
We were lucky to have Mr. Buswell visit Community MusicWorks, once in April of 2016 and again in January of 2017 to offer masterclasses to our students, the latter visit accompanied by his wife, cellist Carol Ou, who offered a cello masterclass. What stuck with me from those events was the passion, the encouragement, and the simply ingenious teaching he and Carol offered our young musicians.
Mr. Buswell and his wife, cellist Carol Ou, treated each student as if they were colleagues, but just at a different point of their journey with music.
I can only hope that I can pass along as much knowledge as Mr. Buswell gave to me…onto his ‘grand students,’ my students at CMW.
–Jesse Holstein, violinist and CMW Senior Resident Musician
Liam, who assists Artist-in-Residence Kevin “Big Lux” Lowther’s weekly hip-hop/pop music class, said:
Bach to the Future: Bite-Size Bach 
Mr. Buswell and his wife, cellist Carol Ou, treated each student as if they were colleagues, but just at a different point of their journey with music.