Reflections on Resilience
During the 2021–2022 season and in partnership with ensemble-in-residence PUBLIQuartet, Carnegie Hall’s PlayUSA launched Reflections on Resilience to explore music as storytelling for students who study instrumental music at PlayUSA partner organizations across the country.
Reflections on Resilience strived to capture the ways young artists in communities across the country were experiencing this moment in history, creating art amid converging pandemics of a global health crisis and systemic oppression. Through engagement in a yearlong project that explored musical improvisation, instrumental exploration, and multimedia storytelling, PlayUSA educators and students approached two main questions, rooted in the theme of culturally responsive-sustaining education:
- How do we tell stories, biographical or autobiographical, through a collaborative, creative process?
- Who tells history? How does history change depending on who’s telling or writing it?
Reflections on Resilience is inspired by Reflections on Beauty, an original multimedia work created by PUBLIQuartet. In the 2021–2022 season, PUBLIQuartet worked with PlayUSA partners to support young artists in telling personal stories, either their own or those from community members, through story creation, musical composition, and performance.
Partner Projects
Watch Reflections on Resilience projects from some of our partners and their young artists.
Juneau Alaska Music Matters (Juneau, Alaska)
This music video is JAMM’s culminating piece for Carnegie Hall’s Reflections on Resilience. It is a collaboration between JAMM, local indigenous organizations, and local arts organizations. It is meant to uplift and acknowledge the Tlingít people, culture, and language, which has been spoken on Lingí land (Língit Aaní) for tens of thousands of years. In the initial stages, this project was inspired by the conversations between JAMM students, Athabascan songster Yuxgitsiy George Holly, and Tlíngit elder Aanyaanáx̱ Ray Wilson to write something about today that documents how our children are learning the Lingít language and bringing it back to our shores—like the tide, which cleanses and heals us. This video brought together students, staff, musicians, dancers, and elders. It reflects the diversity of Juneau’s rich cultures and our dedication to work together, as indigenous and non-indigenous peoples, to help revitalize the Língit language. This project was filmed both at JAMM schools and throughout Juneau, home of the Áak'w Kwáan people.
Enriching Lives Through Music (San Rafael, California)
Over the course of ELM’s Reflections on Resilience project, students explored what resilience meant to them and their families. By interviewing their elders about their earliest experiences with music, our students learned of special songs, melodies, and memories that were important to their families. Drawing inspiration from these musical memories, our students collaborated with award-winning composer Giancarlo Castro D'addona to create an original piece of music for ELM. Our students named the composition “The Mix of the Culturas” to represent the blending of traditional orchestral movements with Latin-infused rhythms.
Chicago Jazz Philharmonic (Chicago, Illinois)
Chicago Jazz Philharmonic’s students focused on an artist who they felt embodied the idea of resilience, Nina Simone, because she made an indelible mark on music despite incredible personal and professional obstacles. A year was spent diving into Simone’s art, life story, and the circumstances of her time and environment. Students also sat down to interview family and community members about the impact of Simone’s music on their lives. This work culminated in the students making an original arrangement of “Sinnerman,” a traditional song closely associated with Simone. They considered how they could capture not only stylistic elements of her music, but also represent pieces of her life in sound (such as her mental health and bipolar disorder, which is most evident in the denouement of the arrangement). The students gave several live performances of their work across Chicago before making the recording featured here at a professional studio.
Resources
Carnegie Hall has numerous resources to help composers hone their craft. Visit the links below to join our community of learners.
Discover Digital Music Production
In this five-part course, your students can join producer and percussionist Charles Burchell in his digital music studio to play around with tools and learn how to create loops, beats, basslines, melodies, and arrangements.
Write Your Own Song
In this five-part course, songwriter and performer Bridget Barkan details how to write a meaningful, original song. She explores the power of music and provides a step-by-step approach to crafting a song that truly speaks to your ideas and emotions.
Listen to Other Songwriters
Listen to songs written by members of the Carnegie Hall learning community for past songwriting projects.
Creative Learning Projects
Listen to songs written by members of the Carnegie Hall learning community for past songwriting projects.
If you are an organization interested in applying for a PlayUSA grant in the future, please visit our Grant Application page or email PlayUSA@carnegiehall.org for more information.