“This article reports on the impact of music education for students in a secondary school in Victoria, Australia. Socially inclusive practices were a focus of the study as the school has a high percentage of young people with a refugee background. … Key findings from this case study research indicated that a music classroom which fostered socially inclusive practices resulted in a positive transcultural learning space. This research raises important questions about the critical role of music education and the arts in contemporary and culturally diverse school contexts.” – Research Studies in Music Education
How to make museums more accessible for people with disabilities? Ask them
“Museums can be hostile places for disabled visitors, with buildings that are hard to navigate by wheelchair and exhibits presented with few concessions to those with sensory or cognitive impairments. But a handful of European institutions have conducted access studies that promise to transform this dispiriting experience, drawing on expert advice from participants with diverse lived experiences of disability.” – The Art Newspaper
Joyce Foundation, SAIC program wants to guide new faces to careers in the art world
“Art on gallery walls doesn’t just materialize — the effort of displaying works is done through preparators. And a collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Joyce Foundation is making sure that artistic avenue is populated with people from diverse walks of life. ‘Re-Tool 21,’ seeks to provide opportunities for traditionally underrepresented groups in the art world, including women, immigrants, people of color, the formerly incarcerated and LGBTQIA, to receive training in art preparation and handling.” – Chicago Tribune
The architect who uses performance to open up public space
“Working primarily in the public realm, Bryony Roberts Studio is a collaborative practice focused on how cultures, histories, and systems of power and politics are represented or erased in space. Through site-specific performances and installations, Roberts addresses themes of democracy, spatial justice, historic preservation, and identity in a way that’s widely accessible to the public. … Roberts’s work is urgent at a time when the politics and sensibilities of public space are under more scrutiny.” – Curbed
Protect the Body: Keeping Daring Depictions of Eating Disorders Safe for Actors and At-Risk Young Adults
“Clare Hennessy discusses the challenges of developing a play that sheds light on eating disorders — depicting them accurately, avoiding triggers — and offers suggestions for other writers in a similar position.” – HowlRound
How streaming, diversity, #MeToo shaped TV decade of change
“A bonus for viewers as they sort through the competing options: More programming doesn’t just mean more of the same. The decade has been marked by opportunities for diverse and candid voices.” – Yahoo! (AP)
Buffalo jumps and handmade lingerie: the Native American artists ‘reversing colonialism’
“Slaughter grounds thick with buffalo remains and a savaging of Thanksgiving myths are two of the highlights in the new wave of indigenous art heading for Britain.” – The Guardian
The Joffrey Ballet’s ‘Nutcracker’ Has a New Role for Dancers With Disabilities
“Marie and Franz have a new guest at their Christmas Eve party this year. Emma Lookatch and Larke Johnson, both dancers in the Adaptive Dance Program at Joffrey Academy of Dance: Official School of The Joffrey Ballet, are alternating in the new role of Worker Girl. It is a permanent part created specifically for students with disabilities in Christopher Wheeldon’s version of The Nutcracker at The Joffrey Ballet.” – Dance Magazine
Judy Dworin Performance Project celebrates 30 years of dancing for social justice
“It’s funny to think of art that is so topical and of-the-moment having such a long history. It’s a big deal when any regional dance company turns 30, but especially remarkable for one that has built its reputation not with mainstream classics but with political, psychological, dramatic works about such fraught topics as immigration, slavery, domestic abuse and civil rights.” – Hartford Courant
‘Who Owns Black Art?’: A Question Resounds at Art Basel Miami
“At a time when black creators are being celebrated as much as ever — from Hollywood to the fine arts — some are raising the question of whether black people are truly the main beneficiaries of the culture they produce. That theme is at the center of an exhibition opening on Wednesday in Miami, outside of the official Art Basel program, bluntly titled Who Owns Black Art?” – The New York Times
What does it mean for a musician to be socially engaged? How undergraduate music students perceive their possible social roles as musicians
“As tertiary music institutions explore ways to increase the social orientation of their curricula, it is important that the student voice be present in research and scholarship. How do students themselves conceive of the notion of a ‘socially engaged’ musician? What social roles do they see for themselves as musicians?” – Music Education Research
MACCO Season Commits to Works from Diverse Voices
“Columbus conductor and clarinetist Antoine Clark wants women musicians and musicians of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds to be heard. Clark is bringing his vision to the McConnell Arts Center Chamber Orchestra’s (MACCO) 2019-20 Masterworks series, Amplified: Do More than Listen, Hear Our Voices. The focus of the series’ three concerts – Voices Past and Present, Voices of Hope and Voices of Freedom – will be on works by women composers and composers of color, all presented alongside works by major composers of the classical music canon.” – WOSU (Columbus, Ohio)
Local Government Artist-in-Residence Programs Must Include Opportunities for Public Sector Innovation
“Current versions of local government artist-in-residence programs typically stop short of figuring out how to induce social change by focusing too much on the artists’ narrowly defined art projects. Often what is missing from these programs is the opportunity for artists to work directly with public sector workers on addressing public sector problems.” – Stanford Social Innovation Review
Grantmaking in the #MeToo Era
Bess Rothenberg, senior director of strategy and learning at the Ford Foundation: “The scale and momentum of the #MeToo movement compelled the Ford Foundation to take a long, hard look in the mirror. What should be our role in responding to abuses of power within the organizations we support? In preventing them? Had we been doing enough?” – Stanford Social Innovation Review
What It Takes to Choreograph an Opera in a Soup Kitchen
“New York City’s On Site Opera, known for staging works in non-traditional spaces, is presenting Amahl and the Night Visitors next month inside the Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen, which serves lunch to the homeless every weekday. … Choreographer Winston A. Benons Jr. … was brought on by On Site’s director Eric Einhorn to reenvision the opera’s ‘ballet’ section where townspeople perform for the three kings. It traditionally features either classical ballet or a European folk dance, but Einhorn wanted a new take. So Benons mined his background in both Afro-diasporic dance (particularly from Cuba, Haiti and Brazil) and modern forms, but also added something more.” – Dance Magazine
Moving beyond resilience education: musical counterstorytelling
“Education discourse has recently turned toward resilience and grit. This article critiques the neoliberalism embedded in resilience education and the manner in which a resilience focus encourages docility, adaptation and vulnerability in youth in response to oppressive conditions rather than addressing oppression directly. As a site of resilience for marginalised youth, music is implicated in resilience education’s failure to address systemic oppression.” – Music Education Research
On The One Hand, Instagram Brings Ballet To The Masses
And on the other hand, dancers really have to keep their feeds up to become big stars. It’s a responsibility far away from the rehearsal studio. – The Observer (NY).
New Data: Who Is Taking Art Classes?
“News that the National Assessment of Educational Progress in the arts would fall victim to budget constraints raised a collective groan from the nation’s arts advocates earlier this year. Many wondered where else they could find national information on U.S. students’ engagement and performance in music and visual arts. A partial answer to that question just came from an unexpected place: NAEP’s 2019 math assessment.” (One of the takeaways: “There are also disparities by students’ race, ethnicity, family income and school location.”) – Ed Note
‘Involuntary’: ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ in the Age of Neurodivergence
Leon J. Hilton explores the recent production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest created by Spectrum Theatre Ensemble, a company dedicated to making theatre with and for neurodiverse artists and communities. – HowlRound
How Native Americans In NYC Are Using Art To Strengthen Community
The nation’s largest city has the nation’s largest Native American population, with 112,000 individuals representing more than 75 tribal nations. Most of those people arrive in New York City with no connection to the indigenous communities there and little or no idea how to access available services. The American Indian Community House is one of several organizations in the city that use art to reach out and make themselves known to Native residents, building community and then using that community to help meet more basic needs. – Gothamist
Making Music: A community-school music partnership
“The purpose of this study was to explore a fledgling community-school music partnership, Making Music, and to examine the benefits and challenges of this partnership. The partnership was initially conceived to fill gaps in the music curriculum in an urban school district where few middle schools housed music programs and music at the elementary and high school levels were inconsistent. What made this partnership unusual was that any school participating in the program received free music instruction on a weekly basis, but only for three years.” – Arts Education Policy Review
Equality and quality: The influence of private funds in public arts education in Boston and Baltimore
“A priority for educational philanthropists is to help schools compensate for social inequalities, which was true of the funders who supported arts education in Baltimore and Boston. But increased access to arts instruction does not guarantee that every student in a school system receives a high-quality, sustained arts education.” – Arts Education Policy Review
Harmonic Convergence
“A new orchestra of musicians from multiple South Asian countries aims to promote understanding through music. Co-founder Nirupama Rao discusses the role orchestras can play in building bridges across geopolitical divides.” – Symphony Magazine
HarperCollins to Launch Native-Focused Imprint
“HarperCollins Children’s Books has announced the debut of Heartdrum, an imprint devoted to publishing books by Native creators that introduce young Native protagonists and showcase the present and future of Indian Country. Scheduled to launch in winter 2021, the imprint is helmed by author Cynthia Leitich Smith, a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation, and Rosemary Brosnan, v-p and editorial director at HarperCollins Children’s Books.” – Publishers Weekly
Head of the Class
“In previous decades, musicians may have learned [such] skills [as grant writing, marketing, and audience development] on the fly, but more and more educational institutions are beginning to make this training part of their curricula. … Moreover, pressing contemporary issues — such as diversity, inclusion, and social equity — that might once have seemed distant from the focus of the academy are increasingly being elevated to central concerns. … Representatives from several organizations that have started offering this kind of training for undergraduate and graduate students share their thoughts on navigating this shifting new landscape.” – Symphony Magazine