Phase II Youth Salon : The Cave

This deep-dive into a topic chosen by CMW’s teen leadership group, Phase II, centers around Plato’s allegory The Cave, with conversation and an exploration of ways in which we can find ourselves looking at shadows and confusing them for the truth.

CMW’s Annual Youth Salon on Zoom!
Saturday, March 27 at 2 pm EST

Click here to join the Zoom event

Two-Year Alumni Fellowship

Community MusicWorks is starting a two-year program open to CMW alumni, ages 18-28. For this opportunity, CMW alums are eligible if they participated in CMW programs for two or more years, and completed high school while enrolled at CMW.

This Fellowship aims to be an opportunity for alums to gain experience and skills in multiple aspects of teaching artistry, youth development, creative practice, and community engagement as a pathway to future work in the arts and /or non-profit sectors. Alumni Fellows will have the opportunity to accrue college credits through a partnership with College Unbound.

The Fellowship is built around the following principal areas:

1. Teaching assistance in CMW’s educational programs. (10-12 hrs/week)
2. Creative practice that is self-directed, ongoing, and culminating in a final project/performance. (6 hrs/week)
3. Learning modules in the form of mini-courses on key aspects of CMW’s operations and practices. These will provide a basic understanding of the organization, and will set fellows up to choose a focus area for their 2nd year. (6 hrs/week)
4. Mentoring support from a dedicated staff or community member.

Salary and Benefits: 30 hour/week position with a salary of $25K + health benefits. (2 fellows in a cohort)

To apply, please submit:

1. A statement of interest, in the form of a 1-2 page letter, or a 5-7 minute video, outlining:

• why you are interested in this Fellowship opportunity
• your creative practice and what you hope to deepen
• how this opportunity will help with your future goals

1. One letter of recommendation from someone who has worked with you in the past 2 years (a former teacher, employer, or similar).
2. Optional supporting material: sample of your creative practice (recording, video, etc.)

Submit application materials to Fellowship@communitymusicworks.org by end of day Wednesday, March 31, 2021. Interviews will be held in April, and decisions will be announced by May 30, 2021. The Fellowship  will start in mid-August 2021.

CMW is an equal opportunity employer, and is committed to building a culturally diverse faculty that reflects the neighborhoods in which we are situated. Women, LGBTQ, and people of color are strongly encouraged to apply.

Alumni Fellowship Full Job Description

CMW Seeks Violin or Viola Resident Musician
for the Academic Year 2021-2022

Founded in 1997, Community MusicWorks (CMW) is a leader in the youth development and music education field, building long-term learning and mentoring relationships between professional musicians, youth, and families in Providence, Rhode Island. CMW musicians teach instrument lessons at no cost to youth in the west and south sides of Providence, and perform in a robust concert series throughout Providence and the surrounding communities. 

The Resident Musician position involves teaching individual violin and viola lessons, and may include teaching additional genres and styles of music, performing as a member of the MusicWorks Collective, and/or coordinating various aspects of CMW’s educational programming; the position has some built in flexibility depending on the interests and strengths of the successful candidate. The successful applicant will be joining a community of musicians who are passionate about exploring and building the connections between music and social justice, who are dedicated to continual growth and learning, who strive to build strong relationships with young musicians and their families, and who enjoy the challenges of both collaborative and individual work.

The position is envisioned at 25-30 hours/week, including many weekends and evenings.  The position includes health and dental benefits. and offers a salary range of $26,000-$39,000, based on hours and experience.

CMW is an equal opportunity employer, and is committed to building a culturally diverse faculty that reflects the neighborhoods in which we are situated. Women, LGBTQ, and people of color are strongly encouraged to apply.

The position will remain open until filled, and applications will be reviewed starting in mid-March, with interviews scheduled in April.

To apply, please send the materials listed below to jobs@communitymusicworks.org.

Applications should include:

1. Resume: Please submit a resume that includes educational training, and teaching, performance, and administrative or other work experience.

2. Statement of interest: In a 1-2 page letter, or in a 5-7 minute video, please describe how your skills will support the mission and vision of Community MusicWorks, and how you believe your approach to music connects to concepts of social justice.

3. Reference list: Please include three references with contact information. List people who are familiar with your playing and teaching experience, or have worked with you in a professional context as an employer.

4. OPTIONAL: Performance Recording: You may supplement your application with a recent representative performance recording if you desire, and are interested in performing as part of your role at Community MusicWorks.

Live! From our living room to yours. Join us for a series of live virtual music-sharing events as MusicWorks Collective musicians share solo, duo, and quartet performances in an intimate house concert setting. Sessions include poetry, music, and conversation, all live-streamed to a small group of participants. We look forward to seeing you and sharing some musical gems!

Admission is free, but reservations are limited.
Click below to register today!

Salon Series Live! with the CMW Fellows Quartet
Saturday, March 6 at 7pm EST
The CMW Fellows Quartet presents excerpts from the Janacek String Quartet No. 1 and Caroline Shaw’s Entracte.
Make your reservation here.

Salon Series Live! with Lisa Barksdale*
Wednesday, March 10 at 7pm EST
Violinist Lisa Barksdale shares stories and music of European Baroque composers Francesca Caccini and Barbara Strozzi.  *For teens and up.
Make your reservation here.

Salon Series Live! with Jesse Holstein
Friday, March 12 at 12pm EST
Violinist Jesse Holstein shares music by Bach, Paganini, Lyn, and Montgomery from among his collection of music-related books.
Make your reservation here.

Salon Series Live! with Sarah Kim
Saturday, March 13 at 4pm EST
Join violinist Sarah Kim for music and a chat, featuring Anna Clyne’s Rest These Hands and excerpts from Bach’s Sonata in g minor for solo violin.
Make your reservation here.

Salon Series Live! with Minna Choi & Sebastian Ruth
Sunday, March 14 at 3pm EST
Minna Choi and Sebastian Ruth offer pieces for violin solo and duo by composers Reena Esmail and Luciano Berio.
Make your reservation here.

The Robert and Margaret MacColl Johnson Fellowship Fund, established at the Foundation in 2003, is awarded to Rhode Island artists whose work demonstrates exceptional creativity, rigorous dedication and consistent artistic practice, and significant artistic merit. We’re pleased to share that cellist and CMW Resident Musician Adrienne Taylor is one of three recipients of this year’s award.

I feel honored and grateful to be a recipient of the 2021 Margaret and Robert MacColl Johnson Fellowship for composition. The fellowship will give me the opportunity to continue writing music inspired by natural spaces and to expand my writing beyond the cello to include other instruments. My solo cello album, SoLa, came out of a very solitary time in my life, and the cello as a singular voice fit the expression of what I was experiencing then. Now, during the pandemic, I’ve been thinking about how much I value the relationships I share with people and the connection I feel with my musical colleagues and friends. I’m yearning for a time when I can make music together with other people again, and I’m feeling inspired to write music that I hope to be able to play one day with the musicians in my life who I care deeply about. It gives me something to dream about for the future.

The hardest part for me is finding the time and space to write. I plan to start writing next month during my practice retreat, an opportunity Community MusicWorks gives to Resident Musicians to take a week away from our regular work in order to focus on a project we’re feeling inspired about. It’s such a rare thing to be part of an organization that values people’s personal musical development in this way. I continue to be grateful to CMW for all of the ways the organization supports its musicians.

–Adrienne Taylor
Cellist and CMW Resident Musician

Learn more about Adrienne on our staff info page.

Read Adrienne’s interview in the Providence Journal.

Photo by Erin X. Smithers

The final Sonata Series Event of the season shares music of hope and despair in a mélange of styles and features conversation with the performers.

Ashley Frith, violist and CMW’s Director of Racial Equity and Belonging, shares Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s “Lamentations: A Black/Folk Song Suite” (originally written for cello) and her rendition of Rhiannon Giddens’ sorrowful and defiant “At the Purchaser’s Option.” The second half of the program features Resident Musician cellist Adrienne Taylor joined by pianist Andrei Baumann. This dynamic duo performs the popular spiritual “Deep River” and for a finale, Claude Debussy’s fantastical and whimsical “Cello Sonata.”

Join us for this final event in our Sonata Series!
Thursday, February 18 at 7pm EST
Click here to join us!

WATCH A SNEAK PEEK HERE!

Andrei Baumann, pianist
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. website: aabadventures.com. email: andrei.baumann@gmail.com

Ashley Frith, viola/vocals
Ashley studied viola with Lila Brown at The Boston Conservatory. In her role as Director of Racial Equity and Belonging at CMW, her work consists of performing, teaching, and developing anti-racism curricula. Focusing on care partnerships, her anti-racism work particularly addresses how racism affects our individual and collective interiority with an emphasis on how we can enter this work through the practice of care. Ashley was the music director, composer, and lyricist for the Trinity Repertory Company’s 2018-19 season production of Jose Rivera’s Marisol, directed by Brian Mertes. She is currently composing music for a production with Off The Page Education in NYC, on allyship. Ashley also explores the use of sound as a healing modality, in combination with mindfulness practices, and the effect these tools can have on mental health.

Adrienne Taylor, cellist
Adrienne has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the U.S., Europe, and Japan, and has performed with innovative chamber music ensembles such as the Kronos Quartet, the Sphinx Virtuosi and Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble. Adrienne finds inspiration in collaborations with composers, singer/songwriters, and other musicians, as well as in her work in film, theater and dance. She also writes and performs her own music for solo cello, and released her debut album SoLa in 2018. Adrienne was one of 50 musicians selected to be a Sistema Fellow at New England Conservatory, where she studied Venezuela’s renowned youth orchestra and social action program, El Sistema. She went on to start the Daily Orchestra Program at Community MusicWorks, which combines core principles of Community MusicWorks with ideas and practices from El Sistema.

This season’s popular Sonata Series event goes virtual with YouTube premieres showcasing solo and duo performances.

Sonata Series Event #3 brings you works by fresh contemporary voices from around the globe. Violin fellow Lara Madden shares George Benjamin’s spare yet evocative “Three Miniatures for Solo Violin” and Mario Carro’s luminous “About Escher” written for Violin and Marimba. Joining Lara for the Carro is CMW’s estimable Program Coordinator and percussionist extraordinaire, Piero Guimaraes.

For the second half of the program, Piero is joined by his wife and former CMW fellow violinist EmmaLee Holmes- Hicks (Class of ’13). This dynamic duo brings us two newly commissioned works by Kareem Roustom and Kirsten Volness.

You don’t want to miss this!
Click here to watch

Two compositions, commissioned, composed, and performed during the pandemic. These are singular times that call upon unique collaborations and unorthodox approaches to the process of imagining and performing music.

During the pandemic, my husband and percussionist Piero and I have used these unusual circumstances to develop our repertoire as a duo. Living in the same house, with no commute time and a few more free hours than before, we have been given a rare opportunity to explore new collaborations and new ways to communicate through our music.

For years we have admired Kareem Roustom’s compositions for their depth and integrity, and for the folk elements, rhythmic intricacies and evocative qualities. But we had been hesitant to ask him to write a piece for us because he is a busy composer with many important commissions to tackle. But the pandemic has refashioned our perspective and taught us to seize the moment. So we decided we should just ask. And he said YES!

After an exchange of emails about the inspiration for the piece, desired length, instrument possibilities for Piero, premiere date and other details, we had a plan. In late November we received Kareem’s email with the first draft, and Piero and I were so excited to open this musical surprise and start unwrapping the layers of meaning and expression.

Kareem creates depth in his compositions through tiers of harmony, form, rhythm and inspiration. This new piece, “Gnizo,”  requires a freedom in phrasing and sound, yet a precision in the notes, motives, dynamics, form and structure. Because of the simplicity of the notes, Kareem suggests that the focus should be on tone production and the awareness of the form.

This piece requires a very specific state of mind, almost a meditative approach in the performer, to get to the heart and to evoke a contemplative frame of mind in the listener. A quiet cry, a yearning for comfort, feelings of aloneness, an attitude of prayer and meditation–all things we can relate to right now more than ever. The composition should be played as if the performer were in a place of worship. For Kareem, he imagines entering a stone church within a convent in Syria. I try to transport myself there through imagery so I can invite the listener to travel with me.

The process with Kirsten Volness’ commission was similar, except that we have commissioned her work before, so we are more familiar with her process. As a good friend, Kirsten is able to tap into what she knows about Piero and me as musicians and people. Because of this connection and the clarity of Kirsten’s compositions, I can picture what it will take as a performer to breathe life into the notes. I can imagine the feelings she wants to evoke and what kind of sound, articulation and color it will take to create the characters and emotions she pictures.

In “The Pathless Woods,” Kirsten combines live electronics with our own instrumental sounds and adds effects. Piero recorded some of the electronic effects using actual percussion sounds. This creates a fun and mysterious combination of live and pre-recorded sounds.

Because the electronics are ‘live’, they become almost like another musician in our ensemble. There are cues in the score that indicate different effects from the electronics and these cues are triggered by a foot pedal that one of the musicians operates. In that way, we are in essence playing chamber music with the electronics as the third member of the trio, except that we control that member.

Another unique element of this piece is the secondary instrument that I get to play–the kick drum. Kirsten knows I enjoy learning new tricks and incorporating different techniques and instruments into my music-making, so she has written in a section where I play the kick drum with my foot while playing the violin.

The title of this work, “Pathless Woods,” resonates deep within me. Growing up on a farm, rimmed with woodland, I explored and discovered the nooks and crannies of those seemingly limitless acres. That special connection with the woods and fields travelled with me to Rhode Island and, during the pandemic, I have spent hours wandering and getting lost in the woods by Carr Pond. The beauty and quiet there infuses me with both energy and peace.

Whenever we perform a premiere work, the collaboration combines the performers’ and composer’s training, experiences and feelings, the current times, the performance space and the audience. In this concert, there is a special feeling in playing the piece because of our personal connections and conversations with the composers. Because we know one another, there is an added depth that plays into the composition, preparation and unveiling that couldn’t happen in the same way otherwise. Having a conversation that starts before the creative process has begunand continues through the composition and rehearsal phases creates a unique blend of contributions, like a friendship that develops over time and is a delightful combination of personalities.

Each world premiere, in its own way, is a reaction to what’s going on globally. Kareem’s piece is more of an inward, retrospective response and Kirsten’s is more of a stream of consciousness reaction to the pandemic.

Piero and I look forward to sharing these new compositions with you.

–EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks, violinist

Hear these compositions and more in our third Sonata Series Event premiering Thursday, January 28 at 7PM EST on our YouTube channel: www.YouTube.com/communitymusicworks

About Escher
Mario Carro, composer
“About Escher” is a three movement work written by Mario Carro in 2015. The work follows traditional classical structure by exploring a fast movement, a middle slow movement, and a fast finale movement. The work was commissioned by two of Mr. Carro’s friends–a husband and wife duo called Duo Escher. Mr. Carro drew on the artwork of Mauris Cornelis Escher for inspiration, and each of the movements is based on one of Mr. Escher’s drawings. The first movement, “Tower of Babel,” is characterized by chaos, noise, and confusion. Heterophony dominates this texture where a single melodic line is  built between the two different instruments. The violin and marimba fall in and out of unisions in this movement which makes the melodic line sneaky and deceiving to listeners. The second movement, “Phosphorescent Sea,” starts with the marimba alone making waves of sound followed by the violin singing an expressive melody with a tremolo section ascending up to the stars. In the closing of this movement the violin joins the marimba in a recapitulation of the opening. The third movement, “Dolphins,” is a joyful and exuberant sonic experience depicting dolphins leaping gleefully around a boat. This is one of Mr. Carro’s most successful works and has been played with over 30 duos in Europe, Asia, America, and Oceania. 

Three Miniatures for Solo Violin
George Benjamin, composer; Notes by Paul Griffiths
Benjamin’s Three Miniatures date from 2001. All were written for friends: the violinist Jagdish Mistry, whose daughter receives a lullaby; the music publisher Sally Cavender, Benjamin’s staunchest advocate; and Klaus Lauer, who presented concerts of new music at his hotel in Badenweiler, where the three pieces had their first complete performance at the hands of another friend, Irvine Arditti. According to the composer, they all explore ‘different facets of the same compositional technique’, which perhaps has to do with a modality rooted in the instrument’s tuning and with canonic processes not limited to the second piece. The first is a sombre melody with double stops and accompanying open strings, lifting off into the upper air of harmonics. ‘A Canon for Sally’, as canons will, mixes constraint and freedom. In the finale, delicate pizzicato music prefaces and accompanies the song.

Gnizo
Notes by composer Kareem Roustom
The word Gnizo, from the Syriac language meaning ‘invisible’, refers to a poetic category of sung text in the church of Antioch liturgy. Gnizo also refers to the practice, amongst some members of the Syrian Orthodox church, of “burying or . . . burning loose pages of holy writing”. Adopted from earlier Jewish practice, Gnizo was an act of reverently burning sacred text pages/papyrus when it was damaged through intensive use, or if the documents needed to be hidden from non-believers who aimed to destroy them. This work, like most musical works, is also filled with hidden meanings and, possibly, hidden texts. The first two movements are based on hymns (or in the case of the second movement a fragment of a hymn) from the Antoch liturgy as practiced in the Levant and the diaspora. (I’ve been inspired by recordings of these hymns that are available through the UNESCO Collection AUVIDIS). Listening to recordings of these hymns during our time of pandemic has given me comfort. These recordings also transport me back to the Syrian village of Saidnaya, where an old convent, founded in 547 A.D., is located. As a boy, I visited this holy place with my family a number of times and I have vivid memories of the stone church within the convent. There was a certain quiet in that church that I’ve not been able to find elsewhere. There was also an acoustic resonance that is ideal for recording vocal music of this kind. Some of the recordings that I’ve been listening to were made in Saidnaya. The presence of the ‘invisible’ was something that I felt strongly in that church. The third and last movement is not based on a hymn but uses the formal structure of one. The built in repetition of hymns must aid in the meditative aspect of group prayer. This movement is a sort of prayer. Then again much of the music that I write has an element of prayer to it.  This work was commissioned by and is gratefully dedicated to percussionist Piero Guimaraes and violinist EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks.

The Pathless Woods
Notes by composer Kirsten Volness
The title is taken from a quote on a tea bag– “There is a pleasure in the pathless woods”–an excerpt from Lord Byron’s poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, in which a disillusioned world wanderer marvels at the ways in which Nature’s sheer power overwhelms Humankind. Written in December 2020, amidst peak burnout and COVID spike, my piece is a stream-of-consciousness reflection on this critical moment when we have awakened to an opportunity to reimagine the world together. Our priorities have come into focus, new paths forward have been illuminated, a hopeful spirit rises, and as much as action is overdue and necessary, we must also rest and gather strength to navigate difficult times ahead. Many musical choices were inspired by my dear friends for whom it was written, EmmaLee Holmes-Hicks and Piero Guimaraes, who also graciously provided percussion samples.

Read performer and composer bios here.

Watch and Listen: Sonata Series Event #3 
Premieres Thursday, January 28 at 7pm EST