Bach at the Dog Shelter

Professional violinist

Martin Agee has been a professional violinist for 30 years – his most favorite audience are animals at a local dog shelter where he volunteers is time.

Early Childhood Conference

Young Audiences

2020 National Conference – Young Audiences Arts for Learning. March 25-27, Nopsi Hotel, New Orleans – Arts from the Start: An Exploration of Early Childhood Learning. This year’s conference will explore timely issues around the theme of early childhood learning.

Call for Workshop Proposals
Deadline: January 15, 2020

Save the Date!

March 25-27, 2020

 NOPSI Hotel
317 Baronne St., New Orleans, LA 70112

Proposals are now being accepted for workshop sessions that address the conference theme, or relate to other priority topics as detailed in the 2020 Conference Workshop Session RFP Guidelines and Application document.

To Submit a Proposal, please download, review, and fill out the 2020 RFP Guidelines and Application document. Email the completed application form to Lauren Altschuler (lauren@ya.org) by 5:00 pm ET on January 15, 2020. Incomplete applications will not be considered. You will receive email confirmation upon receipt of your proposal.

Evaluation and Selection of workshop proposals will be completed by a Conference Advisory Committee. Lead Workshop Session Presenters will be notified via email of the final selection by February 3, 2020.

Questions? Please contact Lauren Altschuler at lauren@ya.org or 212.860.1563 ext. 107.

Stay tuned for the Official 2020 Conference Site, conference.youngaudiences.org, for the latest information, including how to book accommodations through YA’s room block at  NOPSI Hotel, where workshop sessions will be held.

Harvard Study on Music

Songs across societies

Scientists at Harvard published a study on music as a cultural product, which examines what features of song tend to be shared across societies.

We sometimes talk about cultures and communities in terms of the music that represent them. I have been moved to tears more than once while listening to a song while visiting another country. One time while visiting a Japanese elementary school I looked down the row of American guests in an outdoor setting and there wasn’t a dry eye in the group.

The Harvard scientists set out to address big questions: Is music a cultural universal? If that’s a given, which musical qualities overlap across disparate societies? If it isn’t, why does it seem so ubiquitous? But they needed a data set of unprecedented breadth and depth. Over a five-year period, the team hunted down hundreds of recordings in libraries and private collections of scientists half a world away.

“We are so used to being able to find any piece of music that we like on the internet,” said Mehr, who is now a principal investigator at Harvard’s Music Lab. “But there are thousands and thousands of recordings buried in archives.

The entire article is at THIS LINK.

Intergenerational

Puppetry, Storytelling, Music

On Saturday, December 7, students from Falmouth High School (FHS) and residents of The Cedars retirement community in Portland will gather for An Intergenerational Celebration of Puppetry, Storytelling, and Music. The event will mark the culmination of a four-month long project in collaboration between FHS, The Cedars, and Figures of Speech Theatre (FST).

FST Director of Education, Ian Bannon, designed and directed the project, which began with a series of TimeSlips creative storytelling sessions at The Cedars. TimeSlips is a collaborative storytelling format designed by MacArthur Fellow Anne Basting for use by people with cognitive disabilities like dementia. Creativity is an ideal way for people with cognitive challenges to communicate. TimeSlips is developed as a ritual so people with memory loss can learn it through their subconscious or implicit memory. It is based on shifting the emphasis from memory to imagination.

FHS students took turns joining Bannon for the sessions at The Cedars, assisting with the storytelling sessions while gaining first-hand experience with TimeSlips and familiarity with the residents.

FHS Theater Teacher Dede Waite’s students from FHS then dove into the rehearsal process, learning about full-body silhouette shadow puppetry from Bannon and Devon Kelley-Yurdin, a visual artist and community organizer. Students then used the skills learned during rehearsal to adapt three of the TimeSlips-generated stories into original shadow plays. Students in FHS Music Teacher Jake Sturtevant’s music composition class created an original score for each performance, elevating and polishing their fellow students’ work.

Towards the end of the rehearsal process, Cedars residents were invited to join FHS students at the school for a hands-on shadow puppetry workshop, allowing students a chance to work side-by-side with the residents to create short vignettes using the skills they had developed.

The final performances will take place during An Intergenerational Celebration of Puppets, Storytelling, and Music at The Cedars at 1:30 PM on Saturday, December 7. Students will present their adaptations live for the residents. Following the performances, the students, residents, and audience members will be invited to join in an ice cream social designed to foster an intergenerational exchange about the process and performance. Members of the public are fully encouraged to attend.

This project was been funded in part by a Project Grant for Organizations from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Since 1982, Figures of Speech Theatre, has toured the world for more than 35 years with original works created at the intersection of drama, poetry, sculpture and dance. The company has performed in venues including the New Victory Theater, the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center, and Tokyo’s International House. Through their educational programing—which takes place in all 16 Maine counties—FST seeks to engage imaginations, impart skill-based training, awaken consciousness regarding world cultures, and expand students’ sense of life’s possibilities. We offer a range of programming and touring productions in service of that vision.

More information about Figures of Speech Theatre is available on their website: www.figures.org.

The Cedars, Maine and Northern New England’s most comprehensive, non-profit senior community was founded in 1929 as the Jewish Home for Aged. As we celebrate 90 years of innovation, The Cedars offers a full continuum of senior living options, including: Independent Living, Assisted Living, Rehabilitation and Skilled Nursing Care. Currently under construction is the new Sam L. Cohen Households, due to open in Fall 2020, will provide a home environment using the best practices for an enlightened, person-centered approach to care in private rooms for rehabilitation, skilled nursing care and a new, vitally-needed memory care assisted living.

More information about The Cedars is available on their website: www.thecedarsportland.org.

An Intergenerational Celebration of Puppetry, Story-Telling, and Music will be presented on Saturday, December 7 at 1:30 PM at The Cedars, 630 Ocean View Ave in Portland. The performance, which will be followed by an ice cream social, is open to the public free of charge. For more information, please contact Angie Hunt at (207) 221-7171.

Simon & Garfunkel

The Sound of Silence

OK, I admit it – this song takes me back many years. Never gets old for me!

The Ross Sisters

Solid Potato Salad

A real treat – amazing dancing and singing from a different era.

Under the Full Moon

Bellini Opera Aria-amazing

Maestro by Illogic Studios and Bloom Pictures is a lush, short film about beautifully animated woodland creatures putting aside creature differences, to perform together a gorgeous, revolutionary operatic aria under a full moon.

Beautifully Animated Woodland Creatures Perform a Gorgeous Bellini Opera Aria Under a Full Moon