Project Grants for Individuals
Artist: Michael Gore
Project: Supported by members of the Extraordinary Rendition Band Michael Gore will continue to organize the work of the EYE: supporting the landscape of creative arts education in Providence through free youth instruction in music and activism. It explores activism through music and includes free programming for PPSD students in the forms of individual lessons in brass instruments and percussion, group ensemble rehearsal with select public performances, and after school percussion ensembles.
The Extraordinary Youth Ensemble is the educational outreach project of the Extraordinary Rendition Band, which has conducted music activism education, through groups of individual members, for 4 years. Since March 2013, we have partnered with Vartan Gregorian, Reservoir Ave and Pleasant View Elementary Schools, The Met High School, and Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts.
This Spring of 2017, finds us continuing to build on our previous efforts in music activism education, sharing the ERB’s model of public performance, shared-leadership and public service with a younger generation of musicians. The explicit goal is to help our students build skills in instrumentation, band leading, music composition, and develop ideas about what “playing an active role in their community through music” means to them.
RISCA funds are supplemented by donations from the Extraordinary Rendition Band (ERB donates 25% of its annual earnings from gigs to this outreach work) and donations from community partners. Michael Gore currently manages the RISCA Individual Artist Grant and overall EYE programming, but that role has been shared in the past by other ERB members and former members including Avi David and Josh Lantzy.
Programming from the previous year that will be continued in the current one includes:
Hope Academy EYE Percussion Ensemble
Entering its second year run by ERB Bass Drummer and the Musician in Residence of Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts, Avi David. It has also been Co-Instructed by EYE Student Interns from Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts, including Odyssey Scott, Shelby Hopkins, Jamie Cores, and Ariel Cruz.
Reservoir Elementary EYE Percussion Ensemble
Has been run for 3+ years by ERB Percussionist and Photographer David Lee Black. It has also been Co-Instructed by EYE Student Interns from Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts, Orianda Rodriguez, Shelby Hopkins and Jessica Michocoj.
Description of School-Based EYE Percussion Ensemble Programs:
Typical workshops are 60-75 minutes in length and occur once a week for ten weeks. The curriculum has focused on music education, with a heavy emphasis on exploring the role arts can play in community engagement, development and activism. Students have been introduced to beat, rhythm, musical notation, and are learning complex drumming sequences.
What separates our approach from traditional music education programs is our focus on creating a democratic citizenry through music. In this program, students will generally work together to develop a communal list of social causes that they would like to support and will research local events at which they may provide musical support.
Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts EYE Instrument, Composition, and Group Ensemble
For the past three years high school students at TAPA have participated in individual
brass instruction and group ensemble rehearsal, as well as music composition support. They have learned trumpet with Michael Gore, saxophone (alto and tenor) with Keyla Hamilton, trombone with Joey Distefano, and group rehearsal with multiple ERB instructors including Tristan Holbrook.
Exciting developments include:
-The formalization of both volunteer and paid intern positions for high school student members of the EYE to co-teach EYE Percussion Ensembles in our elementary school programs.
-EYE and TAPA Percussion Ensemble students performing in Daniel Bernard Romain’s “En Masse” performance at the Dexter Training Ground during PVD Fest.
-Last school-year we graduated our first multi-year group brass musicians from the EYE. This included one trumpet player, three trombone players, and a percussion and bass player. Not only did they get to perform at their own graduation at TAPA before they moved on to the University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College.
-Since their graduation we have now had two of those members return as alumni-young adult musicians to join at ERB rehearsal and even perform during PRONK! (the Providence Honk Festival).
It is really amazing to see the first realization of what we have hoped for years would develop: a real community of musicians engaging with their community across age and other demographic factors. To bring people together through community and music.
Artist Bio: Michael Gore is a founding member of the Extraordinary Rendition Band, a local, democratically run, activist oriented street band. One concrete example of our activism is the dedication of our time, energy, and financial resources to help bring tuition-free music education back into our community.
The ERB is made up of many lifelong musicians, educators, organizers and social activists including Avi David, Musician in Residence, Trinity Academy for the Performing Arts (TAPA); Dana Borrelli-Murray, Executive Director, Highlander Institute; Michael Gore, English Language Arts Instructor and Department Lead at TAPA; Melanie Clark-Medyesy, Speech Pathologist, Woonsocket Education Dept.; Donna Okrasinski Ph.D, Aspiring Principal, Pleasant View Elementary; Meghan Kallman, Graduate Student and Instructor at Brown University; and Michael Urso, Adjunct Instructor at the Community College of Rhode Island.
The ERB has been directly involved with youth music programming at various levels, including Boys and Girls Club workshops, instrument making activities and instrument petting zoos. In the Spring of 2013, the ERB received a grant from the I WAS THERE Project, which gives residencies to writers, artists and oral historians to engage students of the Vartan Gregorian School in learning about the rich history of their school and the Fox Point community. The project culminated in a collaborative performance with the ERB and Vartan Gregorian student musicians through their school. Hundreds of families attended this historic event which showcased the school’s commitment to community, culture, family engagement and youth voice.
In previous years the youth band was approached by Holly Ewald and the Urban Pond Procession and asked to play in their yearly parade. The students voted in support of this cause and played in that year and in its most recent (and final year) Urban Pond Procession this past year.
The fall of 2014 saw the inauguration of ERB’s most recent youth music education project: The Extraordinary Youth Ensemble (EYE). With the funds made available by this grant over the previous year, we have been able to greatly expand our music education projects in Providence. Over the 2014-2015 school year, ERB members taught weekly music and bucket-drum classes with students at Reservoir Elementary. The EYE bucket-drum class performed at a number of community events, including informational events with the Urban Pond Procession and the annual Pronk Family Fun Day.