Over the past three months, violinist Jorge Gardos has been engaged with CMW on a special residency of teaching, advising, and performing. We first became acquainted with Jorge several years ago, after he had heard a recording of the PSQ on a local television station, and introduced himself at a concert. Since then, we’ve had a growing friendship, and this spring we invited him to join us for several events as a special Artist in Residence. 

During this time, Jorge has offered a seminar to our faculty on teaching ear training to young people, has visited our various ensembles to guest conduct and our studio classes to give masterclasses, and has led singing workshops to introduce our young people to solfege in the manner he taught by none other than the Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist Zoltan Kodaly.

On June 12, Jorge will join the CMW Players for a concert on which he will be featured playing Bartok’s Roumanian Dances for solo violin with chamber orchestra accompaniment, as well as a performance of a Paganini Caprice for solo violin.

Check out this video in which Jorge is interviewed by Media Lab student August Packard about his life in music.

-Sebastian Ruth, Founder & Artistic Director

CMW is seeking a Family Engagement Coordinator to further parent participation, engagement, volunteerism, and communication with CMW's staff. This new position, funded by the AmeriCorps VISTA program, is being created in response to results from CMW's recent program evaluation which showed that students whose parents were more deeply engaged in CMW activities were themselves gaining more from their experience at CMW.

Examples of the Family Engagement Coordinator's responsibilities include assessing volunteer needs, recruiting and coordinating parent volunteers for these needs throughout the year; developing and supporting parent projects and ensuring clear and regular communication between staff and parents; developing and maintaining CMW community partnerships with local organizations, and relationships with CMW alumni families.

Please help us by forwarding news of this opportunity to someone who you think would be an excellent fit for this position at CMW. Applications are due June 1. Details can be found here.

Several of Sara's cellists in action last Saturday.

On Friday, two Boston Symphony Orchestra violists visited All-Play Day to give a masterclass. In the photo above, Ed Gazouleous and Kazuko Matsusaka worked with CMW student Alexis Nelson.

Congratulations to New Urban Arts on the purchase of a new storefront studio and office space, just steps away from their current location (and even more convenient to White Electric)! Read all about it on NUA's blog.

More photos by Jori in CMW's Flickr account.

Many, many thanks to Jonathan Biss for donating his performance last Monday evening to benefit CMW. An amazing advocate for CMW since 2003, Jonathan told a capacity audience that "Beethoven is the most human and idealistic of composers, and CMW is the most human and idealistic of music organizations." He also publicly announced his pledge to return to Providence to perform annual recitals to benefit CMW for the duration of his 9-year Beethoven Sonata recording project for Onyx Classics.
Thank you Jonathan!

-Heath Marlow, CMW staff

PS-Like piano music? On Friday, May 20, acclaimed concert pianist and Brown medical student Naida Cole will peform a solo recital to benefit Brown University's Medical Annual Fund. Download the flier here.

More photos by Jori in CMW's Flickr account.

Golijov Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind II

Huge congratulations to Ariana for accomplishing something pretty incredible today: completing the 26.2 mile Boston Marathon in three hours, forty minutes, and twenty seconds. That's an 8:24 mile pace, folks! In an email last week, she described her experience training for today:

This is my seventh marathon, and my fourth time running Boston. This was a challenging year for training–the extraordinarily snowy winter blanketed us all. I had some memorable long runs–a freezing, sunny 18-miler on packed snow down by the Blackstone river, a couple of 20s on beautiful country roads in Seekonk and Rehoboth, a snow-blown trek next to the Connecticut River in Vermont, watching the sun come up over the killer hills of East Providence, and countless trips in snow and worse up and down the Woonasquatucket River greenway in the West End. A marathon is an incredible emotional journey, and the training no less.

In the fall of 2009, CMW received funding from The Champlin Foundations and The Rhode Island Foundation to launch a new initiative called Media Lab. Born out of the organization's desire to document student work, support the creation of new work, and the recognition that a media environment could be a space for students to gain valuable professional technical skills, Media Lab classes began in February 2010.

The first classes, in electronic music composition and video making, were taught by volunteers from Brown University (Betsey Biggs and Henry Kerins) and RISD (Anne Reinhardt) with support from Media Lab Director Jori Ketten. Last fall, Jori and former CMW Fellow Laura Cetilia co-taught a class that focused on Steve Reich's Different Trains. The PSQ performed Different Trains at the end of the semester at The RISD Museum, and Media Lab students' final projects were also shared at this event. This spring, Jori and Laura are co-teaching classes about Documentary Production and Audio/Visual Composition. Support from a team of very generous volunteers, including Micah Salkind, David Lee, Emma Cunningham, Justin Rosengarten, and Stephan Moore, has been crucial.

The Media Lab website is a key part of the Media Lab program. The site is still new to CMW, and it has yet to be fully integrated into the lives of all of CMW's teachers and students. If you want to see a good example of the future potential of the website, check out how Sara has successfully incorporated Media Lab into her teaching toolbox, corresponding with students and posting information for them regularly.

      click on the image to visit the Media Lab website

Built on a blogging and publishing platform called WordPress, the site is able to accomplish many things:

1. It is a storage facility for student work.

                  Performance Party recordings

2. It is a way to log classroom activities.

                   Electronic Music 1 (09-10)

                      Video making 1 (09-10)

                   Audio/visual composition (10-11)

                         Different Trains (10-11)

                     Documentary production (10-11)

3. It is a way for teachers and students to communicate.

                               Chloe's studio

                                  Sara's studio

                               Aaron's studio

4. Alumni can stay connected to CMW.

                                      Josh R.

5. The site is expandable, meaning that classes, students, teachers, projects, and content can be added each year. Over time, the catalog will grow and students can see how their work has matured and changed over the years.

Media Lab has the potential to play an important role in increasing students' agency and participation in the wider world, two areas that were addressed in CMW's 2009 program evaluation. As CMW continues to explore the vast potential of its Media Lab programming, I hope that you will enjoy visiting the Media Lab website and searching its contents.

-Jori Ketten, Media Lab Director