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Fellowship Program


Encouraged by great interest and enthusiasm from across the country, Community MusicWorks continues to develop and document the details of our successful community arts education model so that we can share them with other artists and urban communities.

Community MusicWorks introduced a Fellowship Program in September 2006 through which young professional musicians can join us in Providence for a period of two years to teach, perform with members of the Providence String Quartet as the Community MusicWorks Players, and acquire firsthand knowledge about our model for community arts education. The Fellowship Program includes five part-time positions: four Fellows and a Fellowship Program Coordinator who is also involved in teaching, performing, and mentoring.

The Fellowship Program was developed by our Strategic Planning Committee in response to two pressing needs:

•  By our ninth season, we had 65 students in our after-school programs and over 130 children on our waiting list. Due to a very high retention rate, only 15-20 spaces become available each fall, thereby making the average wait for a child interested in signing up as long as two years. By adding the Fellowship Program, we have doubled our program capacity.

•  Increasingly over the past seasons, we have received requests from people in other parts of the country to share our model or replicate our programs. We feel that by training young musicians to do similar work, rather than trying to manage programs in other cities, we will achieve our greatest impact in Rhode Island while contributing to the field of community arts education on a national level as a training institution.

Scroll down to learn about our Fellows and Fellowship Program Coordinator.

Applications for 2009-2011 Fellowship positions will be posted here in early 2009.
Violinists, violists, and cellists are encouraged to apply. Click here for more information.


Fellowship Seminars

A series of seminars examines questions broad and narrow about Community MusicWorks.

Unless indicated, seminars are held at the Community MusicWorks office from 1
2:00-3:00 on Fridays.

Seminars are free and open to the public. Bring a brown bag lunch; drinks and snacks will be provided. For more information, contact Minna Choi, Fellowship Program Coordinator, at 401.861.5650 ext 8.


08-09 Seminars

September 26:
Start-Up: How to Make Connections in the Community by Aligning Interests

October 10: Strategic Planning: Growing with our Neighborhood

Tuesday, November 4: Teaching Intermediate and Advanced Students

January 30:

March 20:

May 22:

Topics
TBA, dates are confirmed as of September 2008


07-08 Seminars


October 19: Perspectives on Service
November 16: Teaching (The question of pursuing excellence with students)

December 14: The decision to incorporate as a non-profit
January 18: CMW strategic planning meeting

February 15: Connecting arts and social change (a conversation among teaching artists)

April 25: CMW strategic planning meeting

May 23: Alternative Models



06-07 Seminars

September 21: Introduction
October 5: Teaching beginning students
October 26: Developing a Board of Directors
November 9: After-school arts programs and their impact on youth. Special guest speaker: Dr. Shirley Brice Heath
December 1: Development & Fundraising
December 14: Teaching, continued
January 18: The entrepreneurial side to a non-profit; making connections in the community
February 15: Instruments/Mentor Program; Youth Orchestras/Summer camps
March 2: Phase II and the meaning behind Community MusicWorks
March 16: The Role of the Artist in Community (roundtable discussion with members of the local arts community)
March 30: Workshops & Concert Trips
April 13: Teaching
May 3: National System of Venezuelan Youth and Children's Orchestras
June 8: Alternative Models

 

  Fellows
Adrienne Taylor, cellist (2008-20010)

Adrienne received a Bachelor of Music Degree and Performer Diploma from Indiana University and completed her Master of Music degree at Northwestern University. Her teachers include David Szepessy, Hans Jørgen Jensen, and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi.

Adrienne has performed in recitals and chamber music concerts throughout the U.S. as well as in Europe and Japan. As a member of the Chicago Civic Orchestra from 2005-2007, Adrienne participated in the orchestra’s Musicorps program which presents educational concerts to schools and colleges throughout the city. Adrienne enjoyed various performance opportunities during her time in Chicago, including performances with Yo-Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble during their visit to the city in 2006.

In 2007, Adrienne accepted a position as assistant principal cellist of Orchestra do Norte in Portugal, where she had the opportunity to perform throughout the country. We're thrilled that she has returned to the U.S. to participate in CMW's Fellowship Program beginning in September 2008.

 

Jason Amos, viola (2008-2010)

Jason began his viola studies at age eleven in the public school system of his hometown of Southfield, Michigan. He completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Michigan and is currently pursuing a Graduate Diploma at the New England Conservatory of Music.

He has received honors in several competitions, including 4th place in the 2007 Sphinx Competition and 1st place in the 2006 Detroit Symphony Orchestra's Bradlin Scholarship Concerto Competition. In addition, Jason appeared as soloist with the Ann Arbor Symphony, played in the Flint Symphony, and performed as Principal Viola for many other orchestras throughout Michigan.

Jason enjoys participating in the Sphinx Organization’s musical outreach programs—all programs aimed toward increasing the presence of minorities in classical music. Jason’s teachers include Martha Katz, Yizhak Schotten, Caroline Coade, and Catherine Carroll. He plays on a 1967 Celeste Farotto viola generously loaned through Shar Music.

 

Rachel Panitch, violin (2007-2009)

Rachel began studying Suzuki violin in 1988 in Albany, NY and worked with teacher Barbara Lapidus for fourteen years. At Vassar College, she continued to study classical violin with Betty-Jean Hagan, performed as a soloist with the Vassar Symphony Orchestra, and explored a multitude of fiddle styles. She majored in Anthropology and minored in Music & Culture, with major projects focusing on aural learning in folk music communities and the documentation of early American fiddle music. She came to Providence in 2006 to work as an AmeriCorps member at Providence Children's Museum.

Locally, Rachel has performed both on violin and mandolin with folk and roots-inspired bands including Beat Root, Ben Pilgrim and the Free Union Band, Chris Capaldi Trio and Tallahassee. In 2008, she made her European solo debut on violin with the Providence Mandolin Orchestra in France and the Netherlands. Playing and singing with her bluegrass band, the Bourbon Boys, she has performed at venues from Boston to Wyoming (Rhode Island, that is). Rachel has studied contradance fiddling at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina, the Festival of American Fiddletunes in Port Townsend, Washington, Pinewoods American Dance and Music Week and at Donna Hebert's Fiddling Demystified.

 

Arlyn Valencia, violin/viola (2007-2009)

Arlyn, a violinist and violist from Cleveland, Ohio, has gained recognition as a versatile musician. Her wide range of experience includes being a classical musician, playing guitar, violin, and vocals in rock bands, musical theater, and performing with the violin troupe Barrage.

As an advocate for new music, she has collaborated with composer Steve Reich and served as Concertmaster of the 2004 Baldwin-Wallace FOCUS Festival Orchestra under the baton of Krzystof Penderecki. She was a Fellow at the National Orchestral Institute in 2004-05. A dedicated teacher, creating opportunities for communities throughout the Cleveland area, Arlyn pioneered a pilot string program at the William Cullen Bryant Elementary School through a partnership with Baldwin-Wallace and the Cleveland Orchestra. She also served as an intern with the Lakewood Rock Orchestra Project. Arlyn is a founding member of the American String Teachers Association chapter at the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory, which through her vision, created a student-run partnership with Elyria High School Orchestras.

Arlyn received her Bachelor of Music with distinction from the Baldwin-Wallace Conservatory and recently earned her Master of Music degree from Longy School of Music in 2007. Her teachers and coaches include Laura Bossert, Eric Rosenblith, Julian Ross, Roger Tapping, Terry King, Pamela Frank, Wei-Shu Co, and Lawrence Dutton.



Chloë Kline, viola (2006-2008)

Chloë received her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in performance from the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, where she was a viola student of Martha Katz. Other influential viola teachers include Karen Tuttle, Roberto Diaz, and Richard Young. Chloë has also studied chamber music with members of the Vermeer, Juilliard, Guarneri, Cleveland, American, Orion, Brentano, Emerson, and Tokyo string quartets, and has participated the Aspen, Banff, Taos, Sarasota, Musicorda, and Kneisel Hall summer festivals. From 1998-2000, Chloë performed in concerts and festivals in Germany and across the United States as a member of the Lipatti String Quartet, the graduate string quartet in residence at Northern Illinois University. In 2005, Chloë received a Master's degree in Arts in Education from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education.

Chloe completed the Fellowship Program in June 2008 and joined the Community MusicWorks staff as Writing Coordinator.

 

Laura Thomas-Merino, cello (2006-2008)

After graduating with distinction from the School of Music at Indiana University, Laura accepted a position with the Graduate String Quartet at Wichita State University, where she received her graduate degree in cello performance. She has since performed in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Peru, and Italy. Laura has an experimental electronic group of her own, Mem1, which has allowed her to collaborate with the Penderecki String Quartet and perform at the Orange County Museum of Art, REDCAT (Walt Disney Hall), and at numerous galleries and festivals throughout Southern California. Mem1 curates the quarterly experimental music series, CTRL+ALT+REPEAT, which features performances by local and internationally recognized performers of experimental electronics and new music.

Laura completed the Fellowship Program in June 2008. Learn more about Mem1 by clicking here.


Minna Choi, Fellowship Program Coordinator

A founding member of the Providence String Quartet, Minna returned to Community MusicWorks in 2006 as the Fellowship Program Coordinator. In addition to organizing monthly seminars, supervising the Fellows in teaching and administrative duties, and serving as the contact for the Fellowship Program, Minna performs, teaches violin students, and works with Phase II ensembles on occasion.

Learn more about Minna by clicking here.

 

 

 

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