Bau’s Blaug
The latest news from “the Big Cheese” – Executive Director Bau Graves.
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)
1 Comment so far
[...] I suppose we should tell you what’s going on with this trip. The Old Town School, through grants from the MacArthur Foundation and the Illinois Arts Council, is sending teachers to many different countries this year. (You can read more about the program on Bau’s Blaug.) [...]