“It’s a learning experience for me, not only in construction but in community.”

Construction has entered another exciting phase as workers shape and outfit the interior spaces of the Community MusicWorks Center. Take a peek inside as CMW student and board member Dayana quizzes Pezzuco Construction owner Ron Pezzuco with key questions about the building’s finish date and what kind of sandwich he hopes to see featured in our café.

Learn more about the Community MusicWorks Center here.
Enjoy photos of the interior-in-progress.

This week, CMW welcomes composer Reena Esmail to the organization for a week-long residency that includes a Q&A lunch on Wednesday and the End-of-Year Student Gala on Friday. Jill Pearlman talked with the composer in anticipation of her visit to CMW.

***

One of Indian-American composer Reena Esmail’s secrets is that she keeps a dizzying number of conversations going simultaneously, somehow making it look easy. Not just dialogs between sitar and harpsichord, but also between orchestra and the street, between Hollywood and Bollywood. She does the intricate thinking to meld these layers but wants us to enter with our emotions first.

On first hearing her music, I felt some déjà vu, as if the music stemmed from a vast ocean of origins, and those echoes, resonances and combinations have always existed – but where?  There are secrets to these compositions that Esmail holds and keeps to herself – graciously rolling them out little by little as we immerse in her lush, often provocative project.

Rigorously trained in the classical western schools, at Juilliard and Yale, Esmail had been looking for ways to step out of boxes, closed systems, assumptions.  “I think people overintellectualize music,” she says.  “Professional musicians have been trained to experience things in an exact way. When you take some of those things away, people are forced to read their own intuitions and emotions. I want people to have a visceral response. I’m trying to tap into a third rail of emotion.”

Esmail’s third rail involves not shock and confrontation, but invitation and seduction. In her words, when having intercultural conversations, “I’m inviting others to be uncomfortable in the most comfortable way.”

Her personal mélange of cultures could be infuriatingly confusing. Esmail, 41, was raised in Studio City, Hollywood.  Her parents were “super weird” — although both Indian, her mother was raised in Kenya and her dad in Pakistan, eleven languages between them but English the only one in common. The school scene meant being immersed in movie and pop culture, Spice Girls and Alana Morrisette the backdrop to hanging out with friends whose parents were stars. Bollywood was a rare nod to Indian music heard at home.  She gravitated to Western classical music and pursued a career path, entering Juilliard as an undergrad.

As a budding composer, she felt challenged by the priority of Western harmony, and found herself intuitively drawn towards melody. A year-long fellowship in India when she was 22 filled out pieces of that puzzle – she felt immediately at home in Hindustani composition, the northern Indian classical tradition, and began to study similarities and differences.

A well-known 2018 composition, “Darshan,” for instance, is based on the Bach partita. It flows so beautifully that before you know it, you’re wondering if Bach used those rich textures, that lyrical, head-rolling rhythms, the darkness and lightness.  “It works between sensibilities, taps into new western music style with texture coming in the forefront than background,” says Esmail. “A lot of the surrounding texture approximates a drone. The warmth and buzziness of Indian instruments are similar to elements of baroque music.”   (It was featured in the New York Times’ piece, “Five Minutes That Will Make You Love the Violin.”)

The acclaimed violinist known for this exquisitely expressive piece is Vijay Gupta, Esmail’s husband of four years. Also born in American to Indian immigrants, Gupta had been deeply involved with Bach’s sonatas and partitas, so he commissioned Esmail’s piece before the two were married. Another shared interest: expanding the classical music world’s narrow reach, in setting, audience and power structures.  In 2010, Gupta founded Street Symphony, a Los Angeles-based project established to play music for and with people on Skid Row, in prisons and in shelters.  The work has been appreciated and lauded, establishing community and fortifying Gupta’s urgency of being a “Citizen Artist.”  Gupta is artistic director, and Esmail was the resident composer in 2016-2018.

Being an artist, Esmail says, means “putting ourselves in service of bigger questions. We don’t spend enough time thinking about them.”  Her answer has been to create work that connects, rather than divides.  Similar to the commitment of Community MusicWorks, Esmail says, “this is not outreach, not a thing that is a separate thing from music making. This is not that different in terms of interaction.  We meet people where they are emotionally. That’s the job of artist.”

Lately this has meant asking herself how to write music that engages youth.  Over the years, her compositions for young musicians have expanded one hundred percent. She has written a band piece for high school band, children’s piano and choral pieces with Oxford University Press, written for student ensembles.  “Professional music making, we don’t value enough educational music making.  If you hadn’t played Bach’s Minuet in G as a student, would you value St Matthew Passion as an adult?”

Add to that Esmail’s much anticipated guest residency at CMW, May 14-17.  She will be testing out some of her compositions, such as “Twinkle Twinkle” with Hindustani rhythms, on a tough audience, the kids: “It will be a clear litmus test. A child doesn’t owe you anything!”

 The workshops will culminate in the End-of-Year Student Gala, May 17^th at the Lindemann Performing Arts Center, where CMW staff and student musicians will celebrate by playing an Esmail program.  Watch for “Concerto for You,” a piece which embodies Esmail’s commitment to minimize hierarchies within an orchestra; the soloist, Minna Choi, will circulate and trade on and off with student musicians.  The moving conclusion embodies Esmail’s concept that this concerto is for “you.”  You who?  Gupta, her husband, asked if it was for him. Esmail turned him down and pointed to the musicians. The musicians will gesture outward from the stage –consider yourself invited, this happening is made for you.

— Jill Pearlman

Jill Pearlman worked as a music and arts journalist in New York and France for over a decade.  Now mainly a poet, writing at the edge of music and words, she lives in Providence and is a massive CMW fan.  Her work can be seen at jillpearlman.com.  

Join us for these two events:

A Conversation and Lunch with Composer Reena Esmail
Join us for a conversation and lunch with the composer, where you can ask questions, hear more about her work, and enjoy refreshments. Lunch will be provided. Join us!
Wednesday, May 15 at noon
Southside Cultural Center
393 Broad Street, Providence
Admission is free; Make your reservation here

End-of-Year Student Gala
Join us for a large ensemble performance where the event’s musical centerpiece, Reena Esmail’s composition Concerto for You, is scored for a professional violinist to play with a youth string orchestra, and our very own CMW Resident Musician violinist Minna Choi will perform as the featured soloist. Reena’s compositions combine influences from western classical and Hindustani or Indian classical music, so, we’re pleased to feature master tabla player Nitin Mitta, who’ll lay down percussion with our student ensembles and perform a sure-to-be-stunning percussion solo. Join us at the Lindemann Performing Arts Center at Brown University for this celebratory event as CMW beginner to graduating students take the stage with the MusicWorks Collective and special guests. Cheer on our young musicians, enjoy the fabulous venue, and stay for the delicious buffet! We look forward to seeing you there.
Friday, May 17 at 6 pm
The Lindemann Performing Arts Center
146 Angell Street, Providence
Admission is free; Make your reservation here.

We recently invited some local community members to take a peek inside the Community MusicWorks Center to view the work in progress, and our long-time treasured friend, supporter, and former CMW Board President Karen Romer shared her impressions with us.

Spring, you might think, is well named. Key plants seem to spring up, heralding the approach of others—daffs, narcissi, and lilies of the valley, to azaleas and fruit trees and rhododendrons— stages to appreciate and anticipate, wherever you live.

I recently toured a building, soon to be the physical center of an organization I have worked with since retiring twenty-three years ago when it had just begun, Community MusicWorks.  The day was a lovely spring afternoon, with bright sun and cloudless sky for our hard-hat tour of the completely framed and closed-in building on Westminster Street. The sun flooded in the many windows as we moved through the three floors of the bony structure of the building which they expect to be totally finished in June.

We had celebrated the site on which it was located, and its history, two years earlier, with representatives of the community surrounding it, in a staged program called  The Traces Project, sharing their histories and music traditions.  At the end of that event, we all planted sunflower seeds, which bloomed all over the lot the following spring until the excavation for the building began, folding the sun flowers into the foundation of the new building.

Now, another year later, the building has materialized. It has so many features that we dreamed of nearly 15 years ago, when we first started imagining it, and visiting buildings that might be candidates for a future home. Nothing, then, met our needs, so we managed, with scattered sites, until unexpectedly, a piece of land close to our center on Westminster Street came up for sale.

So here is what we now have emerging: a two story concert hall with movable chairs, – so it can be used for various community events, – a room for the Daily Orchestra Program, small practice rooms, and larger ones for groups; a student gathering room (with some inviting tiers to spread out or converse privately on),  an elevator, administrative offices, a library space, an instrument room with work space for a luthier, and a well-lighted café that will be open to the community from 8-2, and in the afternoon for students and parents, dropping off and picking up their kids.

This building is situated in a community that has a rich history. CMW designed it to enable its ongoing work for years to come: to teach, challenge, and inspire, and also to continue to share in the growth and evolution of the community around it.

Why, you might ask, does this building take its place in thoughts of spring?  It’s not just that it took shape this spring, but much more, because CMW has an amazing capacity to turn the seeds of our collective future into sturdy plants with great roots.

We know that some of these have already taken root as young adults in Providence, contributing their skills and social consciousness to their places of employment; many, many others, in the years ahead, will go forth to enrich and engage other communities, and in turn to spread new seeds wherever they have themselves taken root.  Who knows what new ideas will spring to life as the years unfold into the future!

-Karen Romer

Learn more about the CMW Center here.

Watch the story of The Traces Project on our YouTube channel:

Writer, speaker, and social activist Arlene Goldbard talks with CMW’s Founder & Artistic Director Sebastian Ruth about how classical music can connect with community arts and cultural democracy on a new episode of her podcast, “A Culture of Possibility.”

Three ways to listen!

SPOTIFY:

APPLE PODCASTS:

MIAAW.NET:

Read the summary on Arlene Goldbard’s website

Composer and cellist Laura Cetilia shares thoughts about her piece, counterglow, which will be performed by the MusicWorks Collective in a world premiere event this Sunday at Bell Street Chapel.

***
As you may or may not know, I served as the first Cello Fellow at Community MusicWorks from 2006-2008 and later as a Resident Musician from 2010-2018. I have since been in grad school at Wesleyan (2018-2020) and now Cornell (since 2020) to study music composition.

Fortunately, this year I was able to rekindle my relationship with Community MusicWorks when my daughter became a CMW student studying viola with Jesse Holstein, and I was commissioned to write a new work, counterglow, which will have its world premiere this Sunday at Bell Street Chapel. It has been such a pleasure to write music for close friends — I am grateful for their understanding of me as a person/artist and for their gracious acceptance of what this new piece asks of them.

Over the last twenty years I have developed my own technique of listening to and playing the cello — when the bow is placed very lightly on the string, overtones and a fuzzy layer of soft noise are allowed to speak. I enjoy creating opportunities for these disregarded sounds to be the focus of my compositions. In counterglow, I ask the musicians to go outside their comfort zone and embody this technique within their own playing.

To me, the resultant sparkling yet gossamer timbre beautifully conveys some of the larger ideas around counterglow. Printed throughout the score is a quote from visual artist Yayoi Kusama, “Our earth is only one polka dot among a million stars in the cosmos. Polka dots are a way to infinity. When we obliterate nature and our bodies with polka dots, we become part of the unity of our environment. I become part of the eternal and we obliterate ourselves with love.”

My specialized bowing technique brings out Kusama’s appreciation of the granular with both finite and infinite points occurring within a wash of sound. Similarly, fundamental pitches, such as the open strings of the violin family, are comprised of a multitude of overtones, or partials, that give that note its defining character. I ask the quartet to use their open strings often, and to strive for those overtones to shine through.

In counterglow, I also make use of the smallest interval in Western music theory, the minor second. At times this interval is suspended by one or two players while another instrumentalist slowly glissandos (slides) from the lower note to the next. What results is a sort of shimmering harmony where “dissonance” is treated as a timbre and negates traditional resolution. This technique explores the hidden but rich worlds situated within a sustained semitone, or the notes in between the notes (otherwise known as microtonality, a common musical practice in non-Western cultures).

The title counterglow is taken from an astronomical phenomenon when a bright spot appears in the night sky, caused by sunlight being scattered by interplanetary dust. This is proof that despite the dismal state of the world’s current affairs, we are still surrounded by and are ourselves part of immense and random occurrences of spectacular beauty. I hope the performance of this quartet is a shining moment within this instant of time and space before us.

— Laura Cetilia, cellist and composer

Join us in experiencing the world premiere of Laura’s piece, counterglow!

MusicWorks Collective in Concert
Sunday, January 14 at 3 pm
Bell Street Chapel, Providence

Admission is free but seating is limited
Make your reservation here

***

Read more about Laura here and on her website: https://laura.cetilia.org

As a daughter of mixed heritage, Mexican-American cellist, Laura Cetilia is at home with in betweenness, straddling multiple worlds as cellist / composer / educator / artist while working within acoustic / electronic / traditional / experimental sound practices. Her compositions have been described as “unorthodox loveliness” (Boston Globe) and hailed as “alternately penetrating and atmospheric” (Sequenza 21). Her works have been performed by TAK Ensemble, loadbang, Mivos Quartet, Splinter Reeds, Dog Star Orchestra, a.pe.ri.od.ic, LCollective, and others. The Grove Dictionary of American Music describes her electroacoustic duo Mem1 (established in 2003 with Mark Cetilia, electronics/ modular synth) as a “complex cybernetic entity” that “understands its music as a feedback loop between the past and present.” And in the performer / composer collective Ordinary Affects she has collaborated with, commissioned and premiered works by composers such as Alvin Lucier, Christian Wolff, Michael Pisaro, Jürg Frey, Eva-Maria Houben, and Magnus Granberg. Laura is currently pursuing her DMA in Music Composition at Cornell University and is also a proud mother of one.

CMW presents the first of two performances from Sonata Series Event #1 of Season 27, recorded on Thursday, October 26, 2023 at the Music Mansion in Providence, RI, featuring violinist Becca Kasdan and guest pianist Andrei Baumann.

THE PROGRAM:

Sonata in D Major, Op. 26 “Spring”
Dora Pejačević, composer (1885-1923)

I. Allegro
II. Andante con moto
III. Allegro molto

Becca Kasdan, violin
Andrei Baumann, piano

PROGRAM NOTES:

CMW Resident Musician Becca Kasdan, violinist, is equally passionate about teaching, performance, and community engagement. Becca received a DMA at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she studied with Meg Freivogel of the Jupiter String Quartet and taught applied violin lessons and chamber music. Previously, Becca studied with Violaine Melancon at McGill University and the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University. During the summer, Becca is a violin faculty member at Luzerne Music Center and the Easton Chamber Music Festival. She has presented masterclasses at the Paul Rolland String Pedagogy Workshop, ASTA National Conference, Tonebase Violin, Virginia Tech, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and DePauw University. Prior to CMW, Becca was a Core Teaching Artist with Apollo’s Fire- the Cleveland Baroque Orchestra. Becca is the recipient of the Johns Hopkins President’s Commendation for Achievement in the Arts and currently serves on the Board for the Volunteer Musicians for the Arts.

Guest pianist 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. His Carnegie Hall debut occurred in 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 LA County Arts Museum, 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. Currently living in Providence, Andrei performs regularly with CMW musicians. He teaches at the Rhode Island Philharmonic Music School and at the University of Massachusetts in Dartmouth.

Countess Maria Theodora Paulina (Dora) Pejačević was a Hungarian-Croatian composer, violinist, and a member of a noble family. She is credited with founding modern Croatian chamber and orchestral music. Pejačević composed her first known piece at the age of 12, and was mostly self-taught, aside from occasional private lessons. Her artistic talent was primarily developed through interactions with leading figures of her time such as the pianist Alice Ripper, artist Clara Rilke-Westhoff, writers Annette Kolb and Karl Kraus, poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and other prominent personalities of the European cultural scene. In her early career, Pejačević’s primary musical themes were highly representative of the Romantic period, but this would change after her experience working as a paramedic in the First World War, when her works featured motifs of death, isolation, and futility of war. Pejačević died at age 38, one month after giving birth to her first child. Her legacy includes a large catalogue of compositions, most of which have yet to be published.

Audio by James Moses
Video by Kelly Riley/ Highproof Films

Construction is well underway at the Community MusicWorks Center, and CMW student and board member Dayana is here to give you a sneak peek behind the cranes.

Click here for more information about the Community MusicWorks Center.

We are saddened to learn of Letitia Carter‘s passing one month ago. Letitia and her late husband John were among the early supporters of Community MusicWorks and became a central force in supporting and building this organization.

It was 2003 when we sent a proposal for support—not having any prior connection—to the Carter Family Charitable Trust. Soon after we were surprised to receive notification of a generous grant, and we invited John and Letitia to our next concert. The Carters arrived at Bell Street Chapel and, when they saw the donation table at the front door, John turned to leave, saying he’d be right back, and that he had forgotten his wallet. We tried to assure him it was unnecessary, but he insisted. John returned 20 minutes later, paid the suggested donation amount, and then joined Letitia to enjoy the concert.

This story reflects a broader attitude we have admired about the Carters’ philanthropy over the years. Their involvement in CMW has been seismic, all while being low-key and humble. They were modest, practical in their investments, and wanted no special access or recognition despite the outsized role they played in making any CMW project, initiative, or budget come to success.

When CMW was hoping to launch the Fellowship Program in 2006, we approached the Carters for their support. We shared with them our ambition for the initiative: that this program would allow us to expand our enrollment in Providence and provide a model for other communities in other states to do this work. They were clear in their response: their interest was providing access for more children in Rhode Island, but the other aim of model sharing was interesting, but not their priority.

At one point, we were struggling to identify multi-year support so that every fiscal year didn’t begin at zero. I had a conversation with Letitia about this issue and asked whether they might consider making a three-year pledge. She and John had good questions, wanted to understand the dynamics, and came back with a generous pledge. At that stage it made all the difference: we could breathe a little easier and plan expansions we probably couldn’t have otherwise.

The Carters’ familiarity with the West End and Southside was thorough. In the last conversation I had with John before his passing I shared with him the plans for our new building. He asked for the address and knew just where it was. He remarked that it was a great location and thought the proximity to the park would be a great feature.

Letitia Carter, left, listens with family and friends to a performance by CMW Resident Musician Minna Choi in 2020.

One of the last times I saw Letitia was in the driveway of her Little Compton home. It was in the early stages of the pandemic, and we were doing our “CMW Delivers” series, playing concerts in parking lots and backyards for socially distanced crowds. Minna and I performed for Letitia and some of her family and friends, and her warmth and enthusiasm spoke to our many years of collaborating, her open-hearted enthusiasm, and her generosity of spirit.

We are grateful for the ongoing collaboration with the Carter Family Charitable Trust, now helmed by the Carters’ son John III and attorney Richard Small. But we will miss Letitia Carter’s special wisdom and spirit in this community. Her memory will be a blessing to all of us.

—Sebastian Ruth

Read Letitia Carter’s obituary in the Providence Journal.

“Even though it was stressful learning the music, I knew I was there for a reason, and that everyone shared the same goal of preparing for an amazing concert.”

CMW violin/viola student and board member Dayana Read reports on her recent trip to Los Angeles to participate in the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles National Festival program.

Dayana performs this past spring at a CMW event. 

I remember the moment I got the notification from my teacher, Jesse Holstein, that I got accepted into this summer’s 10-day YOLA (Youth Orchestra Los Angeles) National Festival program*. I screamed in front of the whole Youth Alliance. I’ve never been anywhere near the west coast before, much less Malibu.

Dayana’s first trip to Los Angeles included a view of the famous Hollywood sign.

I felt really nervous when I arrived to LAX airport, everyone seemed like they knew each other.  I was fortunate to meet this girl on the bus named Mia, it was also her first year and we already had a ton in common.  After that, we were basically joined at the hip.

Dayana, left, with new friend Mia at the YOLA summer program.

Every day involved some form of playing my instrument, whether that be in orchestra, sectionals, or both.  The classes were taught by incredible teachers from all over the world.  Even though it was stressful learning the music, I knew I was there for a reason, and that everyone shared the same goal of preparing for an amazing concert.

After classes, we had a different activity every day. There was the Yolympics, the beach, the dance, regular social time, but my favorite was definitely the Hollywood Bowl.  I got to see THE John Williams live conducting the LaPhil.  YOLA even got a shoutout! There were hundreds of people, all waving their lightsabers in the air.  John Williams even fought Gustavo Dudamel, it was a historic moment.

Lightsabers abound at the Hollywood Bowl concert conducted by John Williams.

As we were approaching the concert, I felt better and better about it.  Even though I was only there for a little over a week, I felt bummed about leaving all the amazing people and places behind (especially the on-campus Starbucks).

The YOLA National performs at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

On concert day, I remember the moment I stepped on the stage.  We were in the Walt Disney Concert Hall, one of the most beautiful venues I’ve ever played in. The audience was filled with hundreds of people, all there to listen to us play music. The concert turned out great, and the reception party was too. I’m very glad I had this opportunity to play with and learn from highly talented musicians. I hope other CMW students get the chance to experience an opportunity like this.

—Dayana Read

* The YOLA National Festival is a 10-day orchestra intensive that brings together young musicians from El Sistema-inspired programs nationwide, providing them with world-class music instruction and mentorship. The program, including travel, lodging, and all instruction, is entirely free for all participants. The festival’s purpose is to connect civically-minded young musicians from diverse regions across the country. Bringing together this community who share a common interest in achieving musical excellence serves as the nexus for the progressive future of music education while modeling the future of orchestral ensembles.

WATCH:
Dayana, with her cohorts in CMW’s Youth Alliance, performs at a recent event.

Learn more about the LA Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra Los Angeles.

https://www.laphil.com/learn/yola/youth-orchestra-los-angeles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youth_Orchestra_Los_Angeles

Congratulations to Liam Hopkins (left) and AlexisMarie Nelson (right) on graduating in the first cohort of the Alumni Fellowship Program! AlexisMarie and Liam recently took time to reflect on their experiences at CMW over the past two years and shared them with us.

AlexisMarie Nelson

 As the end of your Fellowship approaches, are there major takeaways or highlights from the last two years?

“Confidence is key! I became more aware of how much work and intentionality is going into what’s currently happening at CMW, and there’s still so much more to be done. It feels both daunting and energizing. Another takeaway is that I have a lot to offer…and also a whole lot to learn!

As for highlights, I really enjoyed having a chance to teach and contribute to the different groups like Daily Orchestra Program, Youth Alliance, and Phase II.  I’m extremely glad I got to add a second day a week with Youth Alliance for my second year! I also really appreciate Green Dragon (weekly staff conversations on anti-racist practice), and getting to spend consistent time as an organization to dig into important conversations. The time that I spent with Chloe and Lisa Sailer in viola and Alexander Technique lessons was invaluable and imperative to my musical progress throughout the fellowship.”

Are there new ideas, skills, or perspectives that you gained from your time in the Fellowship?

“I think I’ve grown a lot personally during this time. It does wonders to be in a supportive environment where you feel able to both work to your strengths and challenge yourself to take on new and different experiences. The experience reaffirmed the importance of multi generational community building and I’m recognizing the power of being able to have a voice as an alumni and a teacher.

I feel more confident in offering the skills that I already possess and asking for help or guidance when needed.”

Have your ideas for your future career path become clearer over the course of these two years? If yes, do you have a direction you want to continue to pursue?

“This experience has only further confirmed that I’ll probably always work with kids in some way! There’s so much vibrancy to the mind and imaginations of youth that too often get tamped and restrained in educational spaces, and I can’t imagine not being an active part of working against that. It also reminded me that there is something special about working with students of all ages. I’m grateful for the amount of hands-on experience in teaching spaces with Amazing teachers that I’ve been able to have and learn from. I know things that I’ve added to my toolkit from this time will be long-lasting.

Musically, I’m feeling proud of my progress, and way more hopeful about performance potentially being a part of my career path. I have some more thinking and work to do internally and externally to do on this end.”

AlexisMarie receives well-deserved hugs from student in the Daily Orchestra Program.

Were there things you found challenging about the Fellowship?

“I think one of the biggest challenges is also, coincidentally, one of the best things about the fellowship! Getting the chance to explore and be a part of so many aspects of the program is so special, and I feel like I was able to build and deepen connections across CMW because of it, but every so often it would feel a bit overwhelming, especially around performances and large projects.

Another challenge was finding my footing in this role as a prior student! It’s very special to be back to such a  familiar place with former teachers, but it took a while to recalibrate to being in these spaces in a different capacity.”

Is there anything that you would wish to be included as part of the Fellowship?

“I can’t think of anything specific to the Fellowship, but I think in general, it’d be nice to know what the Board is doing more often! They play a very important role in our community, and I feel like in the two years, I know the least about what they’ve been up to.”

Liam Hopkins

“As I think back on my fellowship it feels hard to imagine it’s already been two whole years. Every Friday I would find myself blindsided by the end of another week. Sometimes whole months seemed to fly by. And yet looking back to that first day two years seems like a vast stretch of time.

There are so many highlights from that time. Playing in the Phase II orchestra this year and watching the students tackle challenging music, grow their confidence and really settle into a cohesive ensemble was so rewarding. It was also just really fun. It might be the obvious answer but any time I got to speak that special language of music with students was a joy.

I would be remiss not to mention all the moments with colleagues: sharing a little joke with Lisa or Kimberly or Kam from across a Harry Kazirian classroom, the post Phase II debrief with Alexis, Chloe, and Walter, the occasional jam session or moment to be nerdy about music, or simply observing so many striking musicians and teachers work. Whether it was in big ways or small I was lucky to have shared work with such caring and talented people.

The Daily Orchestra Program has a very special place in my heart and I feel so lucky to have been around all those amazing little humans. Zoom orchestra will always be a unique experience for me and I just feel lucky I got to make pirates out of some kids and teach a few sea shanties.

I’m proud of the work Ashley and I did on our seminar this year. I still have some moments to look forward to; I’m so excited to work on my piece with some wonderful players and I know the end-of-year parties will be silly and fun and probably a little nostalgic.

I’ve learned so much about what it means to be a teacher. I’ve learned just as much about everything that goes into CMW and I got to see a whole new side of a familiar place. Just the other night at the End-of-Year gala when I felt like my head was gonna fall off my shoulders, I was struck by the realization that I was on the other side of something I’d participated in so many times as a student. I don’t think I ever realized, at least not viscerally, how hectic it all feels when you’re not just freaking out about playing your solo. So many moving parts go into a production of that scale, with a bunch of hyped-up kids on top of it. Hectic as it may have been, but it was deeply rewarding to see the culmination of a year’s work.

Liam rocks the bass with students at the End-of-Year Student Gala.

In some ways I haven’t gained as much clarity as I thought I might about where to go next. I have learned that I really love working with youth and I’ve had a lot of recent revelations that teaching in many ways makes so much sense for me. I feel like I’ve grown so much as a teacher in the last two years. Part of me also feels exhausted by the prospect of being in a classroom every day.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve found over the last two years has been how emotional this work can be for me. I have left quite a few Green Dragon sessions deeply frustrated. I struggle a lot with the structural position of nonprofits, with what I still see culturally as an attachment to the status quo and a symbiosis with the rich and powerful. Contradictions abound and sometimes they are very difficult for me. The insidious nature of oppression, especially as it so casually operates in America, requires a constant vigilance to have a hope of struggling against. It can be easy to fall back on the default; the default will inevitably hurt our students. Working with young people makes me feel vulnerable and scared and angry for their futures. That certainly wouldn’t get easier anywhere else. When I think about what to do next, I can’t help but think of that. But I also think of all the joy that youth brings and how special it is to have a teaching relationship with young people. In as many ways as I lack clarity on where to go next, I know I’ll carry that lesson with me wherever I am.

The fellowship was simultaneously broad and focused. I had my hand in so many different aspects of CMW; one day could be so different from the next. But each aspect was grounded in the community, oriented around a familiar feeling. I loved getting to experience so many different elements. I could go from a deep conversation on anti-racist practice to a bass lesson, to writing a bachata song with Youth Alliance to playing with an orchestra in just a few hours. And the next day I’d be with first year string players watching Yo-Yo Ma on Sesame Street.

I loved that the fellowship was designed in this way and truthfully, it’s hard to feel that it was missing anything. Sometimes I wished we all had a little more time to casually make music with one another outside of the official MWC calendar. I think back fondly to reading down a jazz standard with Kam and Walter sometime last year. It took me a while to find a mentoring relationship that really worked for my composition, but I got there in the end and I’m really proud of what I’ve written and very excited to hear it performed. Overall I’d be hard pressed to imagine the fellowship differently but I suppose maybe that’s a side effect of having lived it as it was.”

Photos by Erin X. Smithers and Noraliza Grullon