The Ensemble 4 | 2019

the ensemble 4 | 2019 A NEWSLETTER FOR THE U.S. & CANADIAN EL SISTEMA MOVEMENT The Archipelago Project FROM THE EDITOR by Armand Hall, Director of Education, Archipelago Project & Executive/Artistic Director, ROCmusic Here’s a challenge for you: define “excellence.” Collaborative; Daniel Trahey, Executive Director, Archipelago Project & Artistic Director,OrchKids How did that go? Did the perfectly satisfying The Archipelago Project’s objective is to empower Symphony OrchKids program, Peabody’s Tuned In definition pop right up? Or are you doing some student creativity and ownership by supplying Program, Sistema Ravinia, YOURS Project, Project Music backing and filling? musical knowledge, performance opportunities, and Stamford, and Bravo Waterbury. These students joined If you are, I think you’re in good company. This professional models to inspire the next generation of 25 local music students for a ten-day music camp, is a time when longstanding assumptions about engaged musicians. For the past 15 years, Archipelago to create original compositions and Jazz/Pop/Folk/ excellence in music, and in all the arts, are being Project’s iterative process in curriculum design has Hip Hop arrangements. The fellowship and creative unsettled. Last week, at a meeting of the El resulted in our Musical Leadership Academy, a summer process exploded. We heard reports that camp Sistema New Jersey Alliance, leaders of the state’s music camp focused on providing a diverse population participants were developing into leaders at home in Sistema-inspired programs were discussing how of students and teaching artists with opportunities to their ensembles. To deepen these results, we added an to articulate the fundamental values our pro- create music together, learn when to lead and to listen, intentional musical leadership focus for students and grams share. We were pretty much in sync until and thrive in the ensemble as a experiential learning for we began to talk about excellence as a primary metaphor for community. educators. The leadership goal. Some members were not entirely comfort- component involves daily Archipelago was founded in able with the word, saying that when used in a meditations on aspects of 2005 by Dan Trahey and Garrett music education context, it can represent a kind exemplary musicianship, Mendez (Artistic Director of of coded language that evokes a traditionally elit- with discussions led by Project Music, Stamford, CT). ist ideal of refined technique in classical music. students, and directives to Originally formed as a brass No one at our conference table suggested that guide daily rehearsals. band with highly trained this tradition should simply be jettisoned. But musicians from around the Archipelago implemented everyone felt that other crucial priorities also world, our main objective is to collective composition into guide our programs. Creativity, cooperation, peer inspire students and audiences Archipelago Sax players at a student-led perfor- its core curriculum in 2013, learning, community, student voice – all these mance in a brewery. Photo: Keirson Scott from diverse ethnic, geographic, to promote authenticity goals inform the work of shaping our music learn- and socio-economic populations to make music a in local sound, community voice, and a platform for ing environments. Does the word “excellence,” we more important part of their lives by demonstrating students to musically express their thoughts and wondered, have too much connotative baggage music’s reflection on cultural identity. feelings. (https://youtu.be/blg33etELCI) We believe to serve as the right term for these goals? that creativity must be cultivated simultaneously In 2009, Archipelago was invited by Maestro José We experimented with other words we might with technique. Participants at Archipelago perform Antonio Abreu to bring its principles and teaching substitute. Rigor? Intensity? We’re still at it, and at least ten times during the two weeks, premiere at styles to El Sistema in Venezuela. This amazing would love to hear what language works for you. least two compositions and several arrangements, and experience had a deep impact on us, and helped learn to be supportive colleagues. Instruction focuses But perhaps we can keep using the term to mean solidify Archipelago’s commitment to socially on music theory, orchestration, and aural skills, to intensive effort toward bold aspiration – an motivated music making. We were especially struck develop freedom of musical choice. We have found aspect of Sistema learning we all value deeply – if by the statement by Roberto Zambrano, director of that the more students know about the music, the we agree that there are many kinds of excellence, the Acarigua núcleo, that the only way to make true freer they are to manipulate it, even spontaneously, in not just the conservatory-honed one. Howard social change is for these programs to be for everyone, rehearsal and performance. This “ownership” results Gardner posited that there are multiple kinds not just the poor; we need to bring all communities in deep interest in the activity of music-making. Our of intelligence; let’s conjecture that there are together to create more open dialogue, because there overall goal is for the students to perform and create multiple kinds of excellence. In specific learning is no better vehicle for communication than the music music at their highest level as life-long practitioners. situations, we need to be clear about whether ensemble. With that in mind, Archipelago started For participating educators, we offer an opportunity to we’re prioritizing excellence in social communica- looking for more programming vehicles to bring music learn from inside student-empowered lessons. In the tion, in creative energy, or in technical finesse. students from different communities together. Our afternoons, we hold philosophical and pedagogical Our students, I think, are abundantly capable of existing summer music camp in Traverse City seemed discussions about how to create the environment for multiple excellences. It’s a mistake to assume to be the perfect place to do it. this work. that we have to teach one kind, to the exclusion To build a diverse community, we initially brought of others. Can our students achieve excellence of One last aspect of the Archipelago experience is the in culturally and racially diverse teaching artists “Band as Family” experience, when students and musical technique AND excellence of collab- and musics. Then we began to connect broader teachers are gigging, eating, swimming, and maybe orative creativity? I believe the answer is yes. I communities by bringing in students from urban even cherry picking together. The informal time spent also believe that for the global Sistema-inspired areas, to meet their Michigan counterparts and with our fellow musicians helps set the foundation for movement, there’s no more important question. explore the natural wonders of Northern Michigan. We trust, appreciation, and listening – three things we feel brought students from El Sistema programs around are necessary to create great music. Tricia Tunstall the country, hosting 20 students from the Baltimore “You must protest / It is your diamond duty / Ah, but in such an ugly time / The true protest is beauty.” - Phil Ochs, folksinger the ensemble 4 | 2019 A NEWSLETTER FOR THE U.S. & CANADIAN EL SISTEMA MOVEMENT research affirms it – a new study from the U.S. Meludia in Action News Notes Dept. of Education analyzed results from a national survey focused on summer experiences. It shows by Sean Elligers, Teaching Artist, Berkshire June 21 is Make Music Day around the world. that students from affluent families are nearly twice Children and Families’ Kids 4 Harmony (K4H) Musicians of all kinds come out and play on the as likely to participate in summer out-of-school How to teach children music theory, composition, and streets – amateurs, professionals, teachers giving free arts or cultural experiences as are their peers from technology? Many El Sistema programs are exploring lessons, students giving free lessons, audiences. It low-income families. This article in Chalkbeat shares this important question. At our Sistema-inspired began 36 years ago in France, and now earphones more and examines related research to more closely program in Pittsfield and North Adams, MA, students are being shed and the joy of live music is being explore the causes of these participation gaps. study music theory fundamentals and regularly celebrated in over 800 cities. Might your city/town https://tinyurl.com/y7vkb5oh compose music that is performed by their classmates. be the next, or might your students join existing Through a META Fellowship with the Massachusetts activities? It’s easy to join, and you can use the day A report from the Aspen Institute’s National Cultural Council, I discovered Meludia, an ear-training in whatever way makes sense in your community. Commission on Social, Emotional and Academic online platform that uses fun exercises to develop Maybe your students can both perform and give free Development recommends that schools weave the ability to hear, understand, and identify aspects lessons? Maybe you can work with other performing social and emotional learning throughout all of rhythm, melody, harmony, and intervals. Meludia groups, and even store owners, to attract business activities, and also branch out into the community. offers its program free to Sistema-inspired programs. to their shops? Find out more at the website (http://

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