Community Music and Social Justice: Reclaiming Love

2012 ◽  
pp. 154-167
Author(s):  
Marissa Silverman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
Final Section ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Music

This article integrates philosophical reflections on community music (CM) with analyses of two neglected concepts and practices in music education and CM: love-as-action and social justice. It explains the ways CM may adopt, adapt, and benefit from the practices of community facilitators working in various circumstances. It discuss some prerequisites for, and dimensions of, these concepts in the context of Western societies generally and the United States particularly. The final section connects the concept of love-as-social-justice to a practical example in New York City's urban environment.

Community Music Portraits of Struggle, Identity, and Togetherness

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
André de Quadros
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Personal Transformation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Community Music ◽  
General Music ◽  
Narrative Style ◽  
Community Bonding ◽  
Identity Struggle

This chapter explores identity, struggle, and inclusion in three contrasting settings: in American prisons and in community music projects in two vastly different locations and situations in Mexico and Palestine. The chapter relates this exploration to the Empowering Song approach developed in the United States in Boston, Massachusetts. This approach, born in the oppressive context of American prisons, and possessed of general music education approaches, has developed into a model for community music where social justice, enquiry, personal transformation, and community bonding are sought. In all three settings described in this chapter, identity, struggle, and inclusion are key elements through which the author interrogates and examines the artistic, pedagogical, and communal processes through a narrative style.

The Welcome Arrival

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Douglas W. Shadle
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
The United States ◽  
Antonin Dvorak ◽  
The Us ◽  
World Class

New York-based philanthropist and entrepreneur Jeannette Thurber (1850–1946) founded the National Conservatory of Music in 1885 to provide a world-class but low-cost professional music education to students from across the United States. Though it progressed in fits and starts, the conservatory eventually earned a congressional charter in 1891, giving it a unique stature compared to national rivals. A year later, Thurber hired Antonín Dvořák, the famous Bohemian composer, to be its executive musical director—easily the highest-profile individual to hold the position. The US public expected Dvořák to transform the National Conservatory into the international powerhouse Thurber had always envisioned.

Managed Participation: City Agencies and Micropolitics in Participatory Budgeting

2018 ◽  
Vol 47 (4_suppl) ◽  
pp. 76S-96S ◽  
Author(s):  
Celina Su
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
The United States ◽  
Technical Knowledge ◽  
Participatory Budgeting ◽  
Participatory Institutions ◽  
City Agencies ◽  
City Agency

As participatory budgeting (PB) processes proliferate around the globe and within the United States, there remain questions regarding PB’s contested role as an empowering, pro-poor tool for social justice. This analysis of the New York City PB process focuses on the interactions between everyday participants in PB and city agency representatives, the bureaucrats involved in the process. In New York, PB has successfully broadened notions of stakeholdership for many constituents. Still, the agencies’ micropolitical practices—especially regarding contested politics and local versus technical knowledge—help to forward a model of managed participation, sidelining deliberative aspects of the process. Combined with a context of austerity, these practices limit the ability of such participatory institutions to retain volunteer participants, as well as the ability of constituents to substantively shape state priorities.

Little Red Songbooks: Songs for the Labor Force of America

2001 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terese M. Volk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Labor Unions ◽  
Labor Movement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nontraditional Education ◽  
Music Training ◽  
Educational Establishment

Since the early part of the twentieth century, there have been selected colleges in the United States dedicated to the training of future leaders for labor unions. Four of the most prominent are Work Peoples' College, Duluth, Minnesota; Brookwood College, Katonah, New York; Commonwealth College, Mena, Arkansas; and Highlander College, Monteagle, Tennessee. Education at these colleges, including music education, ran counter to the educational establishment of their time. Issues of labor versus management, traditional versus nontraditional education, and structured (formal) curricula versus practical (informal) curricula are all in evidence. All four institutions had songbooks. An examination of archival copies of these songbooks, within the context of the curricula of the schools and the labor movement in the United States, shows that nearly all the songs were parodies set to the folk and popular tunes of the day. These songs provided a means through which to teach union solidarity and labor concepts. Music education at these colleges was generally done on an informal basis. Students developed their skills as lyricists, song leaders, and performers through sing-alongs and the use of music in drama. Nontraditional though this was, the practical music training the students experienced in these labor colleges produced powerful results in their unions.

Negotiating Urban Environment and Economy in New York’s Little Syria, 1880-1946

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (6) ◽  
pp. 1081-1097
Author(s):  
Gregory J. Shibley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Urban Environment ◽  
The United States ◽  
Economic Advantage ◽  
Entire Period ◽  
Financial Success ◽  
Lower Manhattan ◽  
Arabic Speaking

Syrian immigrants populated New York’s Lower Manhattan, creating a neighborhood known as Little Syria. Sources employ “mother colony” and other evocative terms to highlight the unique importance of New York’s Arabic-speaking enclave to Syrian immigrant settlements throughout the United States. Yet no scholarly monograph on Little Syria, covering the entire period of its existence, from approximately 1880 to 1946, has been published. This article argues that early Syrian immigrants used their distinctive ethnicity to economic advantage within this urban enclave but exited its unhealthy environment as soon as they could. Like others, Syrians found unparalleled opportunities for mobility and financial success in New York. Manifesting an Arabic culture and an affinity for the middle class, they left Little Syria behind, and made no concerted attempt to preserve the old neighborhood. They embraced ethnicity as an economic virtue but distanced themselves from ethnicity as an environmental burden.

Editors’ Introduction

2017 ◽  
pp. xxxiv-10
Author(s):  
Roger Mantie ◽  
S. Alex Ruthmann
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
United States ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Sound Studies ◽  
Music Teacher ◽  
Community Music

This introduction provides, first, an elaboration on the handbook’s premise, which seeks to trouble notions of authority and expertise by celebrating the diversity of stakeholders and opinions that narrate the landscape of technology and music education. Second, this introduction provides brief summaries of the contributions that make up the four main parts of the handbook. Twenty-two Core Perspective authors consist of ten females and twelve males across six continents that include the countries Australia, Canada, China, Mexico, Singapore, Uganda, United Kingdom, and the United States. Selected authors include school and community music practitioners, industry members, higher education researchers, and music teacher educators, embracing theoretical frames that include philosophy, history, sound studies, ethnomusicology, social and cultural psychology, and critical theory. To further reinforce the perspectival nature of the handbook, another nineteen authors provide Further Perspectives to various subparts in the volume. We encourage you, the reader, to continue the dialogue begun in this handbook through adding your personal perspectives online via our companion website (http://global.oup.com/us/ohtme).

Choosing Battles in the Cold War

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jocelyn Olcott
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Racial Discrimination ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diverse Group ◽  
Political Equality ◽  
East Berlin ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter discusses how two camps emerged among NGO leaders planning IWY activities. A small group of New York–based women focused its efforts on political equality and educational and economic opportunities for women, reflecting its US orientation. A larger, more diverse group centered in Geneva concentrated more on human rights, social justice issues such as racial discrimination and apartheid, and global disparities of wealth. These debates occurred against a backdrop of UN debates over economic sovereignty and the conflicts between Israel and its neighbors. As the United States increasingly served as a punching bag at the UN, the State Department began to see women’s rights as an arena where it might curry favor; it substantially increased the resources dedicated to IWY and supported calls for a UN-sponsored IWY conference to overshadow the planned NGO conference in East Berlin.

Burleigh at the National Conservatory of Music

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean E. Snyder
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Music Education ◽  
York City ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Students

This chapter focuses on Harry T. Burleigh's study at the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. It begins with a background on the National Conservatory of Music, founded by music philanthropist Jeannette Thurber. Her school became a magnet for talented music students from across the nation. Its faculty included some of the most renowned musicians in the United States and Europe, and it modeled principles for postsecondary music education that attracted Harry, particularly the openness to African Americans as well as women and handicapped students. The chapter also discusses the difficulty experienced by Burleigh before he won a four-year tuition scholarship for the Artist's Course at the National Conservatory of Music. Finally, it considers the influence of African American soprano Sissieretta Jones on Burleigh's early recital career.

Warren Kimsey and Community Singing at Camp Gordon, 1917–1918

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-194
Author(s):  
Esther M. Morgan-Ellis
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Music Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Agenda ◽  
Community Music ◽  
Cultural Center ◽  
Training Camp ◽  
Community Singing ◽  
The Great War ◽  
The City

During the Great War, the Commission for Training Camp Activities (CTCA) pioneered a program in which civilian song leaders were assigned to camps throughout the United States. These men (and a few women) were instructed to organize regular community singing, train officers as song leaders, and cultivate musical talent among the soldiers. They also worked as song leaders in nearby towns and cities, an activity that was intended to improve military–civilian relations and promote patriotism. This article examines the career of Warren Kimsey, the first song leader assigned to Camp Gordon, an army training camp located near the city of Atlanta. Kimsey organized community singing both in the camp and in Atlanta, where he led enormous crowds in the newly constructed Auditorium–Armory. This study presents Kimsey’s work as a product of the nationwide community singing movement and its progressive political agenda, while at the same time contextualizing it in Atlanta’s identity as an emerging cultural center. It also identifies Kimsey’s contributions to music education in Georgia and discusses the broader influence of wartime song leaders on community music initiatives throughout the country.

Writing a Different Story of Music Learning

2021 ◽  
pp. 104837132110124
Author(s):  
Chiao-Wei Liu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Music Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Music Learning ◽  
School Music ◽  
The U.S

Recently, the United States has witnessed an uptick of racially and culturally motivated events that continue to challenge the role of our schools in creating a more socially just nation. In light of these issues, it is important that we consider what role school music education plays in addressing issues related to social justice. In this column, I started by sharing a class conversation on the analogies related to immigrants in the U.S. and then explored the implication of these analogies/stories. Inspired by Chinua Achebe’s analysis on literature and its relation to reality, I ask, not only what stories we tell about music learning at school, whose interest these stories serve, and whose voices/music are privileged? I propose that multiple stories of our students’ music learning may be enacted as forces to counter the dominate narrative. I end with some curriculum ideas for teachers to adapt in their classrooms.

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