Back to Boston I go!

Greetings my blogger friends!

I have some exciting news to share. I am heading back to Boston! I've accepted the position as Artistic Director at YOFES and so will be soon packing my bags and heading back east.
Although I am sad to leave Kids 4 Harmony, I am very excited about getting back to YOFES.

I am thankful for the opportunity to have served as Director of Kids 4 Harmony. I am also very proud of the program's successes over the past year. We have come a long way. Our kids are beginning to understand the concept of working together as a team to achieve the same musical goal. They have performed exceptionally well in all of their public appearances, especially considering that most of them have only played their instruments for 5 months. Kids 4 Harmony has won a place in this community and I am proud of this achievement.

• Pittsfield Mayor Daniel L. Bianchi had this to say about Kids 4 Harmony: "This is the kind of program that I think will change lives and that will change our community".

It has been an exciting experience to be part of developing a new program and it has brought me great joy to see it all come to fruition.  I am delighted to have been part of bringing El Sistema to Western Massachusetts. The groundwork has been laid and will allow for the program to grow and have much success. I look forward to hearing of Kids 4 Harmony's continued progress as it carries on its mission of changing lives through music.

Kids 4 Harmony is under way!

Hello my blogger friends!
I have been in western Massachusetts for 6 months now hard at work to bring El Sistema to Pittsfield. I am so happy to share with you the news that Kids 4 Harmony officially opened its doors on January 17th of this year.

Kids 4 Harmony is an El Sistema inspired program of social change through music. If you are an avid social media user, I encourage you to 'like' us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

A lot of hard work has gone into bringing El Sistema to Pittsfield and because of generous contributions from individuals and organizations as well as private companies, we were able to make this dream come true.

I have started a blog for Kids 4 Harmony where I will post pictures and videos of our young musicians as they develop their skills and grow into western Massachusetts first children's symphony orchestra. You can check out our blog here.

We are at the start of a wonderful journey!

El Sistema in western Massachusetts!

I am happy to announce that I have started my new position as Program Director for El Sistema at Berkshire Children and Families in Pittsfield Massachusetts.
I am very excited to bring El Sistema to western Massachusetts and will be sure to keep you all posted on how the program develops.
I am hard at work dreaming up a "Baby Choir" like the one I witnessed in Barquisimeto. If you want to read more about my experience in Venezuela please visit Tony Woodcocks blog here where I was invited to be a guest blogger. There you will find pictures and videos from my 5 week internship in Venezuela  back in May.
Stay tuned for more updates. For now I am getting to know Pittsfield and the communities that Berkshire Children and Families' El Sistema program will serve. I can't wait to share 'notes' with all of you as we bring this dream to life.
You can find out more about the project by reading the press release in the Berkshire Eagle which is the local paper for Pittsfield Massachusetts.

Berkshire Children and Families

El Sistema USA

Abreu Fellows Graduation June 2011

Venezuela!

We will soon be heading to Venezuela for our residency there and are all very excited about our upcoming trip.

While in Venezuela we will get to visit and work in many different nucleos around the country. We are all equipped with very cool flip cams which we will be taking with us on our trip in order to document as much as possible.  Hopefully by the time we return I will have figured out how to upload or embed a video on my blog and share some footage with you.

I am sure some of you are curious as to what the Fellows have been up to these past few weeks. Well, we've been on our U.S. internships and spring break all the while working diligently on future El Sistema projects. We are all still in the process of figuring out what's next. June is fast approaching and some of us are lucky enough to have wonderful choices for where we would like to be come July, August, or even September. It is an exciting time for all of us, but it is also a time when most of us are being very systematic as we look at future partnerships and organizations we may be thinking of joining. Rest assured that come June you will all know where we will be. I myself plan on keeping my blog even post Fellowship.

I am looking forward to putting into practice everything I've learned during the Fellowship and hope to continue to be a resource for anyone who may have questions about El Sistema, or is contemplating starting an El Sistema nucleo.  A new class of Abreu Fellows should be getting acceptance letters any day now and as my class graduates and goes out into the field to achieve greatness, our network grows stronger.

As soon as I have concrete plans to share with you about where I will be next year and what my part will be in the greater El Sistema network I will share with you. I am still trying to figure it out. What I can say is that wherever I am, I will keep sharing 'notes' with all of you.

YOFES

As part of our program at NEC this year all 10 Abreu Fellows have been placed in Community Placements throughout Greater Boston. These community placements started way back in October and for most of us are still ongoing. Here is a short list of some of the organizations we have been working with this year:

Boston City Singers
Boston Quartet
Zumix
CLCS (Conservatory Lab Charter School)

 I was very fortunate to be matched with an amazing and inspiring organization: YOUTH AND FAMILY ENRICHEMENT SERVICES, INC. (YOFES).


YOFES is located in Hyde Park which is an area south of Boston, past Jamaica Plain and past Roslindale. It takes me over an hour to get there each time I go (I have to take two metro trains and a bus). But when I go, I enter a world where mission and vision mean something. The  mission of YoFES is "to build strong families that can raise healthy children, even in the face of poverty, social inequity, and cultural transition". They do this by helping inner-city youth meet today's health, education, and career challenges; by engaging youth as leaders; and by helping parents understand, guide, and support youth.

You may wonder how this mission aligns with our music education leadership program as Abreu Fellows? Well, along with the youth health careers program, parenting education, and many other public health related programs, YoFES offers a children's music program!

YoFES's music program is called OAMEC ( Open Access to Music Education for Children) and they are dedicated to "engaging at risk youth into the world of music, and providing students a positive outlet to expressing themselves.  I invite you to visit their website: http://yofes.org/oamec

YoFES is a wonderful place where children can come after school and on weekends (they run Saturday AND Sunday!). This is a place where "every child is an asset". I feel very privileged to have gotten to know the kids and staff of YoFES.
 I want to share with you an opportunity to help support this wonderful place. They are currently running an instrument drive for the music program so if you have an instrument you would like to donate please contact them or just stop by anytime!

YoFES
1234 Hyde Park Ave. Suite 104
617-364-0370
617-447-6522

Back in a week!

My extended absence from blogging will be ending soon. Please check back in a week for new blog post with pictures!

A day at Community Music Works

On January 24th the Abreu Fellows went on a road trip to visit Community Music Works in Providence Rhode Island. This is a trip we have been anxiously anticipating. Last semester we spent a day of seminars with Chloe Kline (Education Director for CMW) and Sebastian Ruth (CMW's Founder and Artistic Director). You may remember me blogging about their advice on building an organization based on your beliefs.

Our day trip started early in Boston on what seems to have been the coldest day this winter so far. Our train to Providence was late due to tracks freezing. Nevertheless, we arrived safely and were greeted by Stephanie Fortunato who is a Special Projects Manager for the City of Providence's Department of Art, Culture, and Tourism. Stephanie gave us a warm welcome and spoke to us about the City's dedicated efforts to promoting Arts and Culture. She emphasized to us Providence's goal of being a model and resource to the rest of the nation's cities who are looking to strengthen their community based cultural plans.

Stephanie and Sebastian welcoming us to Providence

We spent some time touring Providence by van. Our first stop was at AS220 which is a non-profit community arts space in downtown Providence.

While at AS220 we got a chance to hear from Humberto Crenca who is the Artistic Director.
Chloe and Sebastian then took us to visit a site that is very special to Community Music Works. A lovely community center where they got their start. Although CMW is housed at a different site today, they continue to offer concerts here.

Liz at the West End Community Center

After our wonderful tour, we arrived at the home of CMW where we received a warm welcome by several of their staff and musicians....and pastries! As we have been learning throughout this Fellowship, food is an important part of community and fellowship. Thanks CMW for such a warm and yummy welcome!

Steven excited about the pastries

While at CMW we talked about a lot of things. It would take me weeks to properly blog and cover all the topics we covered. I want to give you an idea of some of the conversations that happened between the Abreu Fellows and CMW. We talked about the importance of acknowledging the challenges the communities we intend to serve are facing. We have to have patience when young people, we are working with, exemplify these challenges.

We discussed the very complex topic of why people come to concerts and all the different concert experiences that exist today. We took special time to discuss our role as teaching artists and the example we provide to our students all the while acknowledging how their experience going to concerts can and is so different to ours.

We talked about ways to create government supported avenues to help support our projects, whether this is possible or not. CMW's approach to this should be modeled everywhere. They ask themselves: 'how can we support our city in its agenda as much as it can support us?'

We finished our day thinking of "Fellowships for the 21st century musician" which was perfect because we started our discussions at CMW listing words that we associate with "Residency".

Liz, David, Andrea, and Laura on the cold train heading to Providence

I wish I could have recorded the whole day and been able to share it with you, but these pictures will have to be it for now. Enjoy!


Andrea, Liz, and David at Community Music Works



Community Music Works staff and musicians

Walking into the West End Community Center where CMW got its start

Bert, Steven, and Sebastian at AS220

Liz and Laura taking a break at Community Music Works



Andrea, Liz, and I at Community Music Works