The March edition of Tricia Tunstall and Eric Booth's monthly publication about the growing El Sistema-inspired movement in the United States can be downloaded here.

Worth checking out: a new blog about the arts and community engagement by Doug Borwick (Director, Not-for-Profit Management and Arts Management Programs at Salem College in North Carolina).

In November, the CMW Players joined forces with the Haven String Quartet (quartet-in-residence at Music Haven) to rehearse a chamber orchestra program and perform concerts in New Haven and Providence.

Since the music of Bela Bartok plays such a prominent role in our 15th season, I visited CMW's audio archives to retrieve this recording of the first movement of Bartok's Divertimento for Strings, the last work he composed before fleeing Hungary in 1939, from the November 6 concert. Enjoy!

2011-11-06 CMW Bartok – Divertimento – 1

-Heath Marlow, Managing Director

Are you interested in applying to CMW's June 2012 Institute for Musicianship and Public Service. IMPS, as we like to call it, is a four-day professional development opportunity for musicians (of all instruments) interested in a career that combines musicianship and service. IMPS offers a varied and engaging range of seminars, workshops, and interaction with students and CMW faculty.

IMPS is made possible through the generous support of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and therefore the cost of the Institute is only $250 per participant, which includes shared lodging and most meals. Additional tuition and travel scholarships are available for graduates of the Sphinx Competition.

You can learn more, and download the application (deadline extended until March 23), by clicking here.

-Chloe Kline, Education Director

More photos by Jori in CMW's Flickr account.

Click here to check out the February edition.

Music for Youth in Cincinnati (MYCincinnati) is an El Sistema-inspired program in Price Hill, Cincinnati, founded in 2011. The leaders of MYCincinnati are committed teachers and performers looking to create a new model for how musicians live and interact with their communities. The goal is to transform the Price Hill community through frequent neighborhood performances, and by offering a program that immerses local youth in free, high-quality, daily musical instruction.

In the fall, MYCincinnati will be hiring two passionate teachers who are experienced chamber musicians (one violinist and one violist). They are looking for collaborators who will join them in teaching, performing as a string quartet, and in helping build MYCincinnati around a shared vision.

Visit their website for more information.

Excerpted from a recent article by Eric Jaffe posted on The Atlantic Cities.

Last week the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported that transit officials have started to play Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Strauss and Handel at the Lake Street light rail station… The "classical music strategy" began last summer after complaints that the station had become "a haven for rowdy teens and vagrants." The idea is that potential criminals find classical music so detestable that they won't hang around the station long enough to realize their criminal potential:

"If it encourages some people to wander away because it's not their favorite type of music, I guess that's okay," said Acting Transit Police Chief A.J. Olson.

In fact, a long line of cities have implemented the classical music strategy in more or less the same fashion. The Atlanta transit system, MARTA, pumped Handel through its speakers a few years back. Transport for London, which runs the Tube system, expanded its broadcast of Mozart, Vivaldi, Handel, and others to dozens of stations after a successful pilot run in 2003.

The list goes on. In the late 1990s Toronto played Chopin at its Kennedy subway station. And New York City introduced classical into the Port Authority earlier in the decade — prompting even one police officer to concede to the Times: "Sometimes, I want to shoot the speakers."

Photo by Eliezer Faria

Seems as if this "strategy" is in direct conflict with the aim of CMW's streetfront presence and amplified rehearsals. Maybe it is simply a question of repertoire. Sounds like Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Handel and Vivaldi are out. Maybe there needs to be more Bartok or local composers in the mix?

Dear readers, what should our playlist be if we want more teens–not fewer–to hang around our storefront? Feel free to leave your suggestions in the comments section.

-Heath Marlow, Managing Director

Click on the image to enlarge. Note that Brown University's music department is generously offering a limited number of premium seats that will benefit CMW (along with providing free seats for CMW students and families).

From a community center, to a chapel, to a barn, the Fellows String Quartet traveled through the streets of Providence and over hill and dale to perform the music of Bartok and Haydn last month. 
   
The tour began on February 2 with an interactive performance at the John Hope Settlement House in Providence. With their insightful prefatory remarks, Ealain and Ariana introduced the audience to the melodic beauty as well as the humor and playfulness of Haydn’s Quartet in G Minor and to the folk melodies set within a complex emotional tapestry in Bartok’s Quartet No. 2. The Quartet played excerpts of each work to demonstrate how the four instrumental voices use such techniques as plucking and muting to create interesting sound effects and how the voices meld and diverge to form rich harmonies, colors and textures.

On February 4, our troupe traveled to the United Methodist Church in Hope, RI. The unusual design of the chapel bathed our quartet with the intense light of the afternoon sun and with even brighter acoustics. The lively sound stage inspired us to turn our chairs inward to face one another, with the audience surrounding us and enveloping us with their presence. As a quartet, this arrangement allowed us to focus inward and to use visual clues to override the auditory tricks created by the bouncing sound.  This “performance in the round” allowed us to communicate equally within our foursome, and it created a more intimate atmosphere for both the musicians and the listeners.

2012-02-04 Haydn Quartet in G Minor Op. 20 No. 3 I. Allegro

In contrast, our February 5 concert was held in a venue where the acoustics were dry and our sound more focused. The Performing Arts Center at Roger Williams University in Bristol is housed in a beautifully renovated dairy barn, host to theatrical and dance productions as well as musical offerings. We performed on their black box stage, where the theatrical lighting made for a more “naked” performance experience. We shared the bill with Adrienne and pianist Aaron Jackson who performed the Prokofiev Cello Sonata in C Major.   

   
All three audiences received us with enthusiasm and curiosity. The reactions from our fans after listening to the Bartok ranged from “I think I felt just about every emotion you can feel during the performance” to “. . . the Haydn was beautiful, but the Bartok was a reach for me.” 
   

All in all, it was a fun weekend of new venues and diverse audiences that both stretched us as musicians and brought us closer as a Quartet. 

-EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks, Fellow