Bau’s Blaug
The latest news from “the Big Cheese” – Executive Director Bau Graves.
This Is Our Time
January 20, 2009. Welcome to the new era. Today’s extraordinary events mark a paradigm shift that few of us could have believed possible. Many of us are still shaking our heads in disbelief.
But if the world is turning, it is surely turning in a direction that feels comfortably familiar to the Old Town School community. Our new leader calls on us to address the challenges of our time with a spirit of generosity, an acceptance of others, and a commitment to justice. He proposes a national consciousness guided by values of inclusion, not exclusivity; inquiry, not arrogance. Old Town School of Folk Music was a child of the great American folk music revival of the 1950s and ‘60s – a social movement rooted in precisely the values that again motivate our body politic.
The School was, and remains, an experiment in using music and art to forge something more – an open, caring and sharing community; an institution that embodies its beliefs. There was always plenty of room in our chorus for everybody. The earliest teachers represented the full spectrum of our community, including bluesmen, banjo pickers and Latin American songs. The performances today at the Capitol and Lincoln Memorial echo the meaning that has motivated Old Town School from the very beginning.
Now that the zeitgeist is awakening, we have an opportunity to show them what we’ve been practicing for 51 years. And unlike any other time in our history, the Old Town School experience is running in synchronicity with the American experience. Let’s show them what we can do. This is our time.
Filed under: Uncategorized by Bau | January 20, 2009 | Comments (0)
Got on our Travelin’ Shoes
It’s a new year and Old Town School teachers are on the move. Through a pair of generous grants from the MacArthur Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council, the School is participating in a series of international exchange programs in 2009. Our faculty are traveling abroad, meeting foreign musicians, teaching and performing for international audiences, and getting a firsthand look at how traditional music is sustained in other countries. They return to Chicago full of energy, enthusiasm, and fresh ideas that they can share with the Old Town School community. They also make connections with musicians who can be brought to the USA for future residencies. Ideally, these exchanges work in both directions, giving Chicago-based artists the chance to immerse themselves in another culture, while the community back home has the pleasure of an extended interaction with an exceptional fiddler, singer, dancer – fill in the blank – from halfway around the world.
In January, a delegation of five teachers from Old Town School will spend two weeks visiting folk music schools in Mexico. Gail Tyler, Anacron, Shana Harvey, Lanialoha Lee and Jason McInnes will culminate their trip attending the annual Encuentro de las Jarañeras in the colonial city of Tlacotalpan. In February, teacher Nathaniel Braddock and Community Partnerships Manager Nashma Carrera will attend the Dakhla Festival in Morocco as guests of the Moroccan Ministry of Culture. Colby Maddox, Mark Dvorak and Paul Tyler will travel to teach and perform in Helsinki, Finland this June. Bill Brickey and Jimmy Tomasello will spend the month of July as guest teachers at the College of Improvising Music in Moscow, Russia. There’ll be a blog space on the website for all these voyageurs to provide us with a running travelogue – stay posted. And guest teachers are coming to Chicago as well: we’ll have a master fiddler from Finland in residence for the month of September, and a duet of singer-instrumentalists from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in Britain as guest teachers-in-residence during October.
This is a lot of activity, but it is a harbinger of additional opportunities to come. As international exchange becomes a part of the fabric of our community, many more teachers will have the chance to journey abroad, and we’ll all have an opportunity to meet new friends from around the world.
Filed under: Uncategorized by Bau | January 7, 2009 | Comments (1)
