Lucia Brawley

Mr. & Mrs.: Winning the War With Words

2012-08-15T01:10:46-04:00

Mr. & Mrs. -- the explosive new album by Mississippi-born rapper/producer Jonathan Whitfield, a.k.a. Swisha, and the marble-eyed Jamaican rapper/poet Nadirah X -- embodies what Whitfield calls, "being in the foxhole with somebody and knowing they got your back." Indeed, the husband-wife team have fought a spiritual, artistic, social and professional war side by side and they hope that this album, an expression of that struggle, breaks them through to the victory they have been seeking for so long.

Photo: Krystia Royes

With its driving beats, hard-hitting, heartfelt, intelligent lyrics, rousing instrumentation, and propulsive samples, Mr. & Mrs. conveys the artists' busting-at-the-seams impatience with a system, a music industry, a society that stands in the way of genuine self-expression, innovation, originality and soul.

Their stylish, snarling video of the single "On Everything" boasts, "I put it on everything." In other words, "No matter what anyone tries to say or do to demoralize me, everything I do, I make it hot." Masterfully shot, directed and edited for a mere $32 by accomplished video director Shane McLafferty, who has also made videos for acts like Neon Trees, Super Heavy, Stevie Nicks and Mick Jagger, the "On Everything" video simultaneously captures the glamour and the underbelly of Los Angeles, where Swisha and Nadirah live. They battle the "circus freaks" arbitrating who gets to the top in the music business, the cowering conformists who dare not take a chance on an exciting new act that breaks the mold. Nadirah calls the demand for ringtone-type music, "a taste for processed cheese."

Photo: Christine Crokos

Although stunningly beautiful, Nadirah makes a conscious choice not to show cleavage as a music-selling gimmick. She explains, "I consider myself primarily a poet. I am a poetic MC." Having grown up in a Muslim household in the bountiful Jamaican countryside, Nadirah historically has brought her idyllic background to play in lyrical, conscious rhymes, low on profanity. She defied musical expectations, bypassing Jamaican dancehall, for a conscious hip-hop sound that led to her winning "Best New Artist in the Caribbean" and ending up on magazine covers. Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and a multi-platinum music producer discovered her at a show in Jamaica, "Christopher Columbus style," as Nadirah puts it, and began managing her.

Meanwhile, her husband Swisha's story reads like less of a fairy tale. He grew up in violent Clinton, Miss. listening to hardcore East-coast rap, struggling every step of the way, battling in ciphers, developing a more raw, profanity-laden style that he says reflects that "life is not perfect." Swisha explains, "I am spiritual, but I have also always been an advocate of not being overly preachy or holier than thou. There are multiple facets to us as human beings. The profanity comes from frustration with the struggle." Swisha's impact on Nadirah reveals itself in "On Everything," in which she snarls at the camera, curses and declares to the camera, "We gon' end up elevated or we'll end up in an urn."

Photo: Kori Bundi

This quest for elevation out of the struggle, the balance of the divine and the profane, exhibits itself in moving emotional outcries from Swisha in "On Everything," who speaks of promising his mother "that he would finish," that he would make it as an artist. He raps in "Divine" about how his father, an accomplished pianist, almost died of a stroke and how the miracle of his recovery inspired both the song and a re-invigorated desire to win the battle as an artist. The exquisite piano strokes interlaced with the song and highlighted at the end fly from the fingers of Swisha's father himself. In the same cut Nadirah sings of how she hides the struggle from her own daughter, how she herself is still a "little girl with a dream from Jamaica":

They told me stay patient
All you have is time
What's written in the stars is given to you by design
But I hope I never fade from mine
Hope you remember my divine.

On the track, "Know Mi Name," sampling an old Jamaican folk song, "The lyrics say, 'When I was a bad man, killing people, everyone knew my name. Now that I'm spiritual, no one knows me,'" explains Nadirah. With their album Mr. & Mrs., Swisha and Nadirah throw down the gauntlet to the music industry and to our society, daring us to "know the name" of more than gangsta' rappers and ho' slappers, daring us to know the name of spiritual warriors, poets, originals, with the audacity to speak of the divine. Daring us to know the divine within ourselves.

Follow Swish and Nadirah at @officialswish and @nadirahx

Citizens United: Ushering America Toward a Feudal Society

2012-06-12T13:23:00-04:00

The Citizens United decision has catapulted America in a direction that, if left unchecked, will inevitably result in a post-modern brand of feudalism. The worst part is that Americans are actively participating in their own disenfranchisement. When we fall for the billionaires' tactics that skewed Tuesday night's elections, we opt for an America with no collective bargaining rights. With no unions, not only will workers lose their rights and options on a drastic scale, but Democrats will have no money to compete in elections. With no Democratic money to balance out the competition, we could eventually get an all-Republican government from the local to the national levels -- which means a couple of billionaires choosing our country's direction as suits them.

Imagine the current Republican agenda running uncurtailed: no choice, intrusion on women's bodies, more unequal pay and violence against women, no health care for the non-rich, no benefits, low pay, more unemployment, no social programs for those who need it, old people fending for themselves, a decimated environment, unchecked health hazards, no free speech, unregulated corporate criminals, uneducated masses, an even more unjust justice system than we already have, and the working and middle classes subsidizing the rich. But plenty of bread and circuses, in the form of fast food and the Kardashians, to intoxicate the populace into forgetting we are losing -- no, giving away -- our democracy. An Orwellian world.

Heartened by Scott Walker's victory, other Republican governors -- not to mention Mitt Romney and the Republican House of Representatives -- will feel they have been given a mandate to squeeze unions to nothing.

And why shouldn't they feel that way? With the 2010 Citizens United decision allowing corporations "personhood," which affords them the same freedom of speech as you or me and, furthermore, protects unlimited anonymous donations to Super PACs as "speech," the conservative-majority Supreme Court handed our democracy to the highest bidder, as exemplified in Mitt Romney's primary campaign raising enough money to "carpet bomb" opponents with expensive negative ads, and in Walker's victory in Wisconsin on Tuesday. Republican Governor Walker won with $30.5 million in donations, two thirds of which came from big, out-of-state donors. Compare that with his opponent, Democrat Tom Barrett's $3.9 million dollars, of which only a quarter came from out of the state.

Lest you think the conservative Justices who effected Citizens United did not have a Republican government takeover in mind and were just deliberating impartially, consider that Justices Scalia and Thomas have been known to attend "strategy coordination meetings" in luxurious locales with the very billionaires who back Walker and Romney and bankroll the Tea Party movement. The overtly stated goal of these meetings is to "advance our shared principles" of prosperity -- for the prosperous, that is, rather than for "the State" (read: the rest of us poor schlubs). These self-proclaimed "doers" masterminded the 2010 "shellacking" that gave us a Tea-Party-controlled House, as well as a vast swath of states controlled by right-wing governors and state legislatures.

And as they themselves say, this is just the beginning. We artsy-fartsy, tree-hugging, science-loving, kumbaya lefties and centrist rationalists need to start having a few strategy coordination meetings of our own. World-renowned evolutionary biologist E.O. Wilson states in his book The Social Conquest of Earth, "Individual selection tends to favor selfish behavior. Group selection favors altruistic behavior and is responsible for the origin of the most advanced level of social behavior, that attained by ants, bees, termites -- and humans." In other words, selfish individuals do best, but altruistic societies do best. We must use our creativity, our reason, and our very "99-percentness" to prevent our society from becoming a feudal one in which we all serve a few billionaire masters who use money and what John Kenneth Galbraith called "superior moral justification for selfishness" (i.e., a cynical use of religious and ideological "freedom" terminology) to garner the support of people who will vote against their own interests -- which, believe it or not, are best served when we support our collective interests. If our unions are to crumble and billionaires have unlimited freedom to buy our elections, we must devise new systems that enable our society to evolve for the common good.

Own It, Obama!

2011-08-15T23:06:07-04:00

You actually heard me, President Obama. You used "Obama Cares," which I've been saying ever since you proposed your historic health care plan and which I coined publicly in my blog last week .

In one of your Midwestern town meetings on Monday, you said, "I don't mind hearing that 'Obama Cares.' Of course I care. Do you want a President who doesn't care?" You owned the Republicans' slur, "Obamacare," and you turned it on them, just as I urged you to. While I would like to think you read my blog post, you probably just caught onto a zeitgeist. Either way, you heard my message and the message of so many other democrats exhorting you to get back on the offensive in the fight for the future of our country.

The more hard-hitting and direct you are the better. The more you own your critics' ammunition against you and turn it on them, the more effective you'll be. Since, as you embark on your listening tour, you actually seem to be listening, I have a few more comebacks for you. Feel free to use them liberally. No pun intended.

1.) Tax and Spend: "You're right. I want to tax the richest Americans a little more, in order spend on getting the middle and working class back to work, and keeping this country innovative and great. The Republicans want to tax the middle and working class and spend it on tax breaks for the rich. I know some Americans do not want the rich to be taxed because they figure when they get rich they will want to keep their money. To which I say, 'Don't worry. If you're a billionaire and you're taxed at the same rate as your secretary, you'll still be a lot richer than your secretary.'"

2.) Bleeding-Heart Liberal: "The Right is always talking about Christian values. I believe in freedom of religion, according to the First Amendment; I embrace the diversity of American beliefs; and I believe, as Jefferson did, in the separation of Church and State. But if we are talking about bleeding hearts, Christ is the ultimate example. He said, 'The last shall be first,' 'the meek shall inherit the earth,' 'blessed are the peacemakers,' and 'it it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.' And they call me a socialist. Similarly, the Republicans are always talking about family values, but from what I can tell, they want to cut every program that helps American families."

3.) Big Government: "To some people, saving the country from a Depression, saving the American auto-industry, providing health care to 20 million Americans who didn't have it before, helping to save the environment, giving women equal pay for an equal day's work, as well as access to free women's health, and killing Osama bin Laden mean big government. I just call it governing. All the Republicans do is say no to everything -- except to giving giant tax breaks to big oil, corporate jet owners and corporations who ship their jobs overseas. That's not small government. That is not governing."

4.) Lack of Leadership: "Some people, even in my own party, say I lack leadership because I compromise too much, even when the other side won't compromise at all. But I promised when I ran for president that I would bring people together. Is it leadership to polarize and divide, never to see the other guy's point of view, to sacrifice getting any legislation passed at all just to stand for well-intentioned legislation that won't pass? Call me idealistic if you want, but I still believe in a democratic America in which the different branches check and balance each other to create a compromise that best meets the needs of the whole union. I am not King Barack, who can just cram any laws I want through the Congress. I am an American president, which means that I work in partnership with the other branches of government and, most importantly, with you, the American people." (For this idea, I owe most of the credit to my fellow campaign organizer, Jeremy Grandstaff.)

5.) Where are the Jobs?: "Speaker Boehner has asked me, 'Where are the jobs?' I'll tell you where they are. The jobs have been cut as Speaker Boehner's party has allowed corporations to massively downsize workers, so that CEO's and board members now split record profits, without sharing them with the people whose hard work helped make them rich in the first place. Even mega-billionaire Warren Buffett said in his op-ed piece that there were more jobs when taxes on the rich were higher, under Reagan, Bush, Sr. and Clinton. In fact, job rates have plummeted since my predecessor offered the very richest Americans unprecedented tax cuts. There is no correlation between lower taxes and higher job rates. No matter how many times the Republicans call rich people 'job creators', no matter how many times they tell us that these 'high tax' rates are stifling their ability to put Americans back to work, no matter how many ways they spin this malarky, it still won't make it true.

Open Letter to President Obama Post-S&P's Credit Rating Downgrade

2011-08-08T13:48:01-04:00

Dear President Obama,

Happy Fiftieth Birthday. As the First Lady said in her birthday email to supporters on Thursday, you're earning every gray hair. You must have great empathy for Atlas these days. And he for you. Only he knows what it is like to be in your position.

Outside of your family and friends, no one loves you more than I do. Ask anyone who knows me.

You seemed to have appeared like a God-given antidote to the tenor and the policies of the George W. Bush administration. I started volunteering for your last campaign in February of 2007. I helped found a group of volunteers that grew from 4 to 2,000 members, winning for you in both the primary and general election by landslides in our congressional district. I went to Camp Obama. I met you three times, Michelle twice, and Joe Biden once during the course of the campaign. You and I bonded over being left-handed Leos.

I met the man who would become the father of my child at a fundraiser for your campaign. At another event, I met Arianna Huffington, who asked me to blog for her. I donated the maximum amount to the campaign, which was a great deal of money for a young, unknown actress with student loans and a car note. I had total faith in your assured victory, even when you lagged 20 points behind Hillary. I went to the Convention to see you accept the nomination. I stood a couple of hundred feet away from the Capitol, as you took your inaugural oath. I have phone banked, knocked on doors, registered voters, given speeches at rallies, talked to the press, learned voter software, cut turf, organized canvasses in four languages, asked questions on CNN/YouTube debates, bombarded my Facebook and Twitter updates with words of support for you. I blogged in the Huffington Post on your behalf. I applied for positions in your administration (with all due respect to Kal Penn, he stole my job). Often, I have incurred great ridicule from the base for my blind devotion -- defending your choice of Rick Warren to deliver the benediction at your inauguration, defending your equivocation on gay marriage, defending your compromise on health care, and even defending your compromise on the debt ceiling. In short, I am a total Obama nerd.

Part of my unwavering support for you has been my belief in you as a person, a belief that was born when I saw you deliver your 2004 convention speech for John Kerry and which grew when I read your honest, soul-searching memoir, Dreams from my Father. It grew even more when you raced up the stairs to a donor's house, defying your Secret Service guys, to shake the hands of us volunteers, saying with youthful enthusiasm, "I remember you guys from yesterday." And it deepened as you weathered every imaginable buffet to become the first African-American President of the United States of America. My daughter is half-African, half-white-American, like you. She was just born in September of 2010. And she will never know an America that has not had a president who looks like her.

The other part of my support for you has been simple stubbornness. I feel partly responsible for your success. And my bulldog jaws are latched onto that success's hem, unable to be pried apart. Do not fail me now.

You won as a consensus builder. I have always seen your compromises as your taking the long view. As your being sanguine, sober, responsible, wise. But you also won as an agent of change. Please do not compromise away the store.

Yes, you have won us health care, equal pay for an equal day's work, insurance for children, ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." You're ending the wars; you killed Osama bin Laden and have all but destroyed Al-Qaeda. You have given more money to education and the arts than any president in history. And you won free birth control for women. In normal times, there would be no argument about your formidable acccompishments.

However, we can all agree these are not normal times. The Tea Party's treasonous brinksmanship with the U.S. debt ceiling has led to our first credit rating downgrade in history. I know it is only by Standard & Poor's questionable standards. I know they miscalculated the numbers. But they have not miscalculated the instability of our political system as it exists under the bullying tactics of the far right. Even you have admitted that.

As Marshall Ganz, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government professor who taught us how to organize at Camp Obama, said, "Compromise is not a strategy." Giving away revenues, not establishing a jobs program, not repealing the Bush tax cuts, leaving Wall Street criminals untouched, allowing unions to be busted without much fanfare, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to be up for grabs, bargaining away graduate student loans, disowning your great achievement of health care (Obamacare? Yeah, that's right: Obama cares), negotiating against yourself, succumbing to bullies -- these are not strategies for your success, and more importantly, they are not strategies for the success of our nation.

My daughter Bianca is only 10 months old and she is already walking like a champ. She's so determined. I want to know that the America she inherits is more lustrous, not tarnished, than the America in which I grew up.

I will fight for you in the upcoming campaign with everything I have, in order to prevent a Republican, or unthinkably, a Tea Party candidate from winning the presidency. But in order to fight for you again, I have to know you're fighting for Bianca and me. Because if not you, then who?

Sincerely,

Lucia Brawley

10 Reasons for Progressives to Feel Reassured About the Debt Package

2011-08-02T12:48:27-04:00

1. The debt ceiling is being raised.

2. We will not have another debt ceiling battle in 6 months.

3. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security remain untouched -- which would not even have been the case in President Obama's first proposal.

4. $2.5 trillion in cuts, as opposed to Obama's initial proposal of $4 trillion (to say nothing of Paul Ryan's 6 trillion).

5. Many of the cuts are in defense.

6. The super committee will have triggers to prevent deadlock.

7. The cuts are for over a decade and do not begin to take effect until 2013.

8. The Bush tax cuts expire in 2013.

9. Polls showed a majority of Americans wanted Obama to compromise more. He did. In the election, no one can say he is the unreasonable one. It is very easy to say the right is more than unreasonable. The Tea Party is reckless and dangerous and now everyone knows for sure.

10. Now we see why the 2012 elections are so important. America got what it voted for in 2010. If we want to reverse the disastrous policies George W. Bush instated and the Tea Party have kept in place, we have to turn this country around in the next election.

Stix Bones of Soulfège

2010-08-18T02:45:30-04:00

I first introduced you to the band Soulfège through its leader -- musician, public speaker, entrepreneur and Oprah Radio host, Derrick Ashong -- in my piece "Oprah and the Voice of a New Generation." Now, I would like to acquaint you with the other phenomenally talented members of the band, who describe their sound as "the Fugees jammin' with Bob Marley on a street corner in West Africa." Each blog post will profile a new band member, as he reveals himself in an interview that explores how he came to music, how his career blossomed and now, how he chooses to give back and what direction he would like to see music education in this country take.

First up -- electrifying Soulfège drummer, Stix Bones, who also plays with his band, Stix Bones and the B.O.N.E. Squad. Stix' solos include nearly indescribable acrobatic feats, such as switching from playing facing the audience to playing with his back to the audience, then facing front again, without ever missing a beat:

LB: When did you first know you were interested in music?

SB: 8 years-old. I used to have imaginary drums when I was a kid. Two un-sharpened pencils -- because my mom couldn't afford a drum set -- were my first drum set. I had a little radio in my room and I would play to the songs on my radio. I played for everybody - Madonna, Prince, everybody -- in my room.

LB: How old were you when you started studying?

SB: At maybe 10 or 11, I had a couple of lessons, which didn't last very long. I remember the imaginary drums becoming real. Then, I didn't have any lessons until my older brother went to college. My brother who's 9 years older, had a drum set. All his friends were musicians. So, whenever I had a chance to play, I did. But I didn't have any lessons. I would play at church, as well.

Eventually, I went to SUNY [State University of New York at] Purchase - I knew I wanted to do something in music because when I auditioned, I auditioned for studio engineering, to make beats and stuff like that. I noticed they had a percussion department and I asked the dean if I could switch. But then when I got to the percussion department, it was classical and everyone had been doing it since they were 10 years old. The professor was like, "HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET IN MY CLASS?" But because the school had already accepted me, he let me stay. That first semester, I got an F plus. I failed with flying colors. A guy asked me to read what was on the paper and I said, "Mozart. Concerto #9." He was like, "No, the notes."

I was the only African-American drummer at the time on the whole campus. This was in 1992, that's when I got accepted. They kicked me out of the program.

What saved me was they started a jazz department, the next semester. The dean called me in, said, "We're not asking you. We're telling you. You're going to the jazz department. We're not even asking your mother." I still wasn't used to reading or learning technique. Everything I knew was stealing and listening to the radio. I had to learn everything I should have learned 10 years earlier -- they gave me a metronome, to teach me how to learn to keep time. Other students were coming in who had years of technique and none of them were black except for me. I had to do everything more than everybody else -- I had to practice more, spend more of my spare time. I didn't even carry books in college, I carried drum sticks. I failed Part I of Music Theory. Had to wait until the next fall to try again.

One thing the college could not grasp was the way of the streets, the way of hip-hop. They couldn't understand where my talent came from, they just knew I had some. They taught me how to play my part, keep my timing. If you ask any drummer who their favorite drummer was, they could tell you. When they asked me, it was all DJ's - DJ Mr. Magic, DJ Cool Herc and DJ Red Alert. They said, "You don't know no drummers?" I was like, "No!" They named the drummer who played for Miles Davis, Tony Williams. Elvin Jones played for Coltrane. They named the drummer who played for Duke Ellington, who at the time I didn't know was Louie Bellson. These are all white boys [in my class at Purchase], so they named rock drummers, as well. But I came from Brooklyn.

There was one DJ in particular, performance-wise, DJ Scratch. My solo is influenced by his solo because I grew up with Scratch. When I started to go to college, he would say to me, "What do you want to do when you have the spotlight? How do you entertain an entertainer?" He taught me showmanship. When you see me perform with Soulfège - it's a show within a show. Scratch said, "What I do on the turntables, Stix Bones does on the drums."

I'm coming from a world, trying to teach [the music department] what hip-hop is. They're coming from a world, trying to teach me what drumming is. It wasn't until my junior year that my grades started to go into the A and B range because it was more performance classes than theory classes. I buddied up with the more advanced students.

My theory teacher was a phenomenal classical pianist. The key is to sight read. He said, "This young man here, he didn't even look at the paper and he played it." If I heard it once, maybe twice, I could play it. The third time, I could play it without looking at all.

My recitals, I put together a whole show, lights, dancers, musicians, rappers, DJ Scratch. Truth be told, my technical style is not proper. It's one of those Aretha Franklin things or Anita Baker things, where you have this God gift, [but no formal training]. I had to learn how to play jazz, I had to learn how to swing. I had to learn how to do that for hours. Afro-Cuban rhythms.

The day of my graduation from Purchase, I had a show for the Black Expo in front of 4,000 people, playing for Jessica Care Moore, who won 5 times for poetry at the Apollo on TV. [That success] led her to perform at the Jacob Javitz Center in Manhattan, where I played for her. I got my diploma, walked off stage and went straight to the Javitz Center. So out of all those kids, the kid who flunked the first year and got kicked out of percussion performed a 4,000-person show the day of graduation. The kid with no technique, with no drum set.

LB: What musicians influenced you most?

SB: My #1 influence: DJ Scratch from EPMD. Elvin Jones, once I finally learned about him. Truth be told, my brother, Anthony Heyward. If it weren't for his drum set, I wouldn't have ever played. I would watch him and his friends all the time and whenever he went to work, I would get on his drum set and mimic him.

My brother is proud of me overall for taking what I learned from him and taking it much further. When I went to college, he gave me the drum set to take to Purchase. I took that drum set to Europe with me when I went on tour. He would have liked to have been a recording artist. He's 14 years now as a corrections officer at Riker's Island. He's proud overall that I'm feeding my family through this.

Through [the legendary hip-hop showcase,] Lyricists Lounge, I was able to play with a lot of people. Derrick [Ashong]'s friend Anthony Marshall and Danny Castro founded it. Their mission was to get signed artists to play with unsigned artists on the stage. Doug E. Fresh would introduce us. They didn't want to use a DJ; they wanted to use a live band, which is how they got me. So, I brought my band. Shared the stage with Common, De La Soul, (some of these guys, I became friends with), Mos Def, Q-Tip and A Tribe Called Quest, Doug E. Fresh, Rahzel from the Roots (I went on tour with him before Lyricists Lounge), Black Sheep, and many, many, many more. It was a true crowd. If you were wack, they would boo you off. I felt like I was good at what I do, like I was a great drummer, finally. I have to credit the overhaul I got at Purchase. It made me feel like a professional. If you're paid for what you do, you're a professional. I don't have a 9-5. I have a wife and three kids.

LB: Tell me a little about the music teacher(s) who most impacted you.

SB: Two of them. The deans of the [SUNY] Jazz Department, Douglas Monroe and James Mcelwaine. They dragged me from the classical department and said, "Look black kid, we don't care what you want to do, you're coming to the jazz department." "Ok, big white guys. Whatever you say."

LB: Did you have music education available to you in your public school?

SB: I didn't know what a drumline was until I saw the movie in 2001. There was no music class and there was no sports, growing up in East New York, Brooklyn. The only music class I had was going to Pentecostal church with my mom. If I'd'a went to a Baptist church, I would have been screwed - they didn't have drums. And a Catholic church, I would have been really screwed. East New York, to this day, doesn't have a music program.

My mom didn't have money. As I'm older, I'm a father, I'm learning how expensive it is to get your kids into something. Whenever you're in the arts, you may be there talent-wise, but if you're not there financially-wise, you gotta take the hits. It costs to be the best. It takes money to make money. If you don't have the money, you better have the time. If you don't have the time, you better have the money.

LB: Do you teach music now?

SB: No. A couple years ago, I started getting students. Private lessons. DJ Maceo from De La Soul - he asked me to teach his son to play the drums. My kids go to the instruments and make noise. When I was teaching back in '06 or '05, the problem was, I never had the real training. So I taught kids how to keep the beat and how to play through a song. But the technical aspect, I can't give them something I don't have. If I would have had music in school, it would have been different. But because I have a degree, I can go to any school and apply to be an instructor. I've learned over the last year that music schools are in the suburb neighborhoods. I wish I'd had a high school band. Out in Long Island, they have high school bands, athletic departments.

But, like, kids who go to Juilliard, they don't make what Lil Wayne does. It just makes you wonder. What is that industry really based on?

LB: What direction would you like to see music education take in this country now? Why?

SB: I would like to see more of the successful musicians come to teach music education. I would like to see Quincy Jones and Clive Davis and Mary J. Blige instructing classes. Be a mentor. Because once a lot of these artists retire, Chaka Kahn, Patti LaBelle, they get a cooking show or reality show, but those are the people who should be working with the kids in the public schools. Are you kidding me? Chaka Kahn could blow out half the people singing today. More successful musicians and artists becoming mentors in education.

If the opportunity comes, I'll do that. But the schools aren't interested. It's not important to them. I have a friend who's a music teacher. At the end of the year, he had us professionals come out and play for the kids in his class. Half of these kids don't know who Q-Tip is.

Hip-hop, though, did one thing for this generation. It interested us in music through sampling. If I hadn't heard a song sampled by my favorite hip-hop artist, I would have never learned half these songs out there because there was no access to them in my neighborhood. How come Lil Wayne doesn't do a song with Big Daddy Kane, to help young people learn hip-hop history? The record labels ain't trying to keep anybody in the know. When Mary J. Blige sings with Aretha Franklin, she introduces her to a younger generation.

_________

Stay tuned for the next Soulfege interview, with wunderkind bassist and Berklee School of Music alum, Alex Staley . . .

The "Mosque"

2010-08-16T21:16:03-04:00

If we allow 9/11 to make us abandon the First Amendment's declaration of religious freedom for all, then the terrorists have won. It shocks me that so many Americans are ready and willing to ditch their commitment to the Constitution, demanding the prohibition of the Cordoba House, an Islamic cultural center -- which many are calling a mosque -- from being built near Ground Zero. When Timothy McVeigh bombed Oklahoma City, did Oklahomans suddenly call for a ban on the congregation of Christian libertarians in the area? Islamic extremists, not all Muslims, bombed the World Trade Center. Hitler, not all Christians, committed genocide on the Jews. If we suddenly confuse the part for the whole, where does it end? Are all white people members of the KKK? Do all Catholic priests molest little boys?

President Obama was absolutely correct to reiterate the constitutional right of any religious group to build a place of worship and cultural exchange anywhere on American soil. There are churches and synagogues near Ground Zero. Why not a mosque or Islamic cultural center? It would be one thing if a Jihadist group wanted to build a center near the hallowed ground of the former World Trade Center -- a place especially dear to my heart, as I expressed in my blog post last week. However, from what I understand, the Islamic cultural center is intended as a locus of inter-faith dialogue and the promotion of peace.

On the other hand, some now condemn what they view as Obama's "backpedaling" on the matter of the Cordoba House, his shifting from strong support of it in his Ramadan speech to an ostensibly wishy-washy stance on it, with his statement that he supported the right of the Cordoba people to build their center, but would not comment on "the wisdom" of the decision. At first, I took offense at the President's seeming to disavow his initial courageous and constitutional position. However, musician, entrepreneur and Oprah Radio talk show host, Derrick Ashong, pointed out in a conversation we had this morning that it is a municipal matter, the specific merits of which are not for the President to debate. "He is a man of genuine nuance," said Derrick, "and the problem with that is that most people don't want to parse out that nuance."

Touché. I agree that it is not for the President to meddle in municipal politics. It was right for him to take a strong stand on behalf of the First Amendment, both nationally and internationally -- as he delivered his speech at an international Ramadan dinner, intended to win hearts and minds of Muslims worldwide, in great part to reinforce our national security.

Let us think and conduct dialogue in a more nuanced way as Americans. Let us analyze our President, our Constitution, our religious institutions, our domestic and international policies, our media, each other as individuals, in a manner befitting what is best and brightest in ourselves.

9/11 Responders Bill is Not Controversial -- Illegal Immigrants Were Heroes, Too

2010-08-13T00:27:00-04:00

By now, many of you have seen Queens and Brooklyn Rep. Anthony Weiner lambaste Republicans, both on the floor of Congress and on MSNBC's Morning Joe. Weiner's beef? Only twelve Republicans voted for what seemed to Democrats a no-brainer, bi-partisan, non-controversial bill to provide 9-years-overdue health care to the heroes who responded at 9/11, many of whom continue to suffer long-term health problems, especially lung-related, as a result of their work at Ground Zero.

Apparently, one excuse Republicans used for not backing the bill was that some of its budget would provide health care to illegal immigrants who also attempted rescue operations at the time of our national tragedy. Weiner argues that the Republicans have made even the most sacrosanct of national events an opportunity for political obstructionism and petty arguments. Joe Scarborough argues that Democrats should have got the bill through without Republican support, as they did health care.

Democrats should not have had to get this bill through on their own. 9/11 was the single largest attack on U.S. soil, killing 3,000 Americans of every color, gender, sexual orientation, religion, age and level of physical ability. Those who responded to this tragedy with total disregard for their own personal safety are unequivocally American heroes. And yes, some illegal immigrants rank among those heroes. I saw them with my own eyes.

Shortly after the attack, I rushed down from Yale, where I attended graduate school, to my native Tribeca which, only a few days before, had sat in the shadow of the Twin Towers. Despite their protestations that I not risk a terrorist attack on the Metro-North trains, I knew I had to hug my parents in the flesh, to reassure myself that they were really alive. Army tanks, crushed cars, sleeping bags and search dogs lined Greenwich Street, where I had once learned to ride a bike and had climbed the jungle gym in Washington Market Park. I connected with the staff at Yaffa's restaurant - then a kind of living room for Tribecans - making myself as useful as I could to firemen, police officers, National Guardsmen and other rescue workers. I recruited a group of young neighbors to Yaffa's basement kitchen, where we made as many sandwiches as we could, to try in vain to fill the void in our hearts. Under that twisted heap of smoking rubble down the street, we feared thousands of living people remained trapped. We found out later that the last survivors had been pulled out the day before.

I remember the besmirched faces of the guys you couldn't touch, the ones fresh from digging in the pit, whose gaze made them seem as if they'd just emerged from Hell. I remember the stench that hung in the air and clung to our clothes. At the end of the day, we'd all gather in Yaffa's, and these giant rocks of men would cry on the shoulders of us young volunteers -- like the Newark fireman who lamented, "I dug for eight hours. The dogs were barkin' like there's all this DNA there, but all I found was a helmet. Every one was just blown to dust."

I also remember an even more startling site. When all the "legit" heroes went home, new teams arrived to replace them, searching and digging through the night. Because I'd befriended so many of the authorities guarding the perimeter of Ground Zero, I was granted access past certain barricades. In a kind of crazed crusade, I continued to try to deliver sandwiches past dusk. In the twilight made deep purple by the dust of the dead, I offered my tray of sandwiches to what looked like a phalanx of recent Latin-American immigrants, whose brown Indio faces warded me off. More than refusing my sandwiches, their deep black eyes exhorted me, "Do not see us. We are invisible." I wondered how little they were paid for digging all night in the toxic rubble, who had hired them, and who else knew about them.

If you join the American military, doesn't the U.S. grant you citizenship for your service? If you dig for the dead on the occasion of our nation's greatest tragedy, are you not serving this country? If you suffer health problems as a result, do you not deserve to receive care, citizenship or no?

Even with both citizens and non-citizens included in its language, the 9/11 Responders Health Care Bill deserves unequivocal support from both sides of the aisle. It is a no-brainer.

Oprah and the Voice of a New Generation

2009-12-09T21:01:33-05:00

"You work and work and fight and struggle and all the time, you're dreaming of this moment when it's all going to happen, when people will listen to your opinions and team up to make your ideas happen. I'm in that moment right now and it's unbelievable. Everything I've worked so hard for is coming together right now," says Derrick Ashong, activist, social entrepreneur, and front man to the band Soulfege - who has recently caught the eye of Oprah Winfrey .

A couple of years ago, things looked a bit more challenging for Ashong. He'd organized a record deal and international tour for Soulfege. All eight bandmates had let go of their apartments and day jobs. And a week before they were supposed to go on tour, the venture fell through. "So it looked like my whole band, including me, had to start from scratch and it was all my fault because I'd pulled the plug at the last minute after realizing the record company wasn't living up to their end of the bargain. I felt so bad," says Derrick.

Exacerbating his frustration was the fact that Derrick was a 33-year-old Harvard graduate, who had immigrated to this country from Ghana at four years old with his parents and younger sister. He had defied the traditional expectations of what he calls an "F.O.B." (Fresh Off the Boat), by daring to enter into the arts, rather than going into a more stable profession. The stakes were high for him to prove the validity of his unconventional choice. Furthermore, he placed upon himself the added pressure to succeed at a very high level, in order to help the rest of his family back in Ghana - and indeed, to help transform the nation of Ghana itself.

Fortunately, Mr. Ashong has no dearth of faith, pluck, intelligence or drive. As an undergraduate, on the first professional audition of his life, he won a stand-out role in Steven Spielberg's Amistad. He shares a speaking agent with Nobel-Prize-winning luminaries, such as Mikhail Gorbachev and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Derrick is in demand around the world to speak, ex tempore, about how to empower disenfranchised communities and young people. He helped found the Harvard Black Men's Forum and Harvard Black Alumni Society. He worked for a time for Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, helping him run his media venture. He's played guitar with Gilberto Gil. And a cutting-edge documentary about a global shift in consciousness, aptly called The Shift (not to be confused with self-help guru Wayne Dyer's The Shift), features Derrick prominently amidst the likes of Tutu, Richard Branson, Bono, Deepak Chopra, Mohammed Yunus, Fatima Gailani, Marianne Williamson and Al Gore. And, even though he did not naturalize as an American citizen until he was 25 years old, he knows every intricacy of United States politics, rendering "news junkee" a polite euphemism.

The latter skill unexpectedly gave him his big break when, during the last presidential primaries, an older white gentleman with a video camera approached Derrick outside an Obama-Clinton debate in Hollywood. Looking much younger than his age already, Derrick could have passed for a high school or college student, wearing a baseball cap, hoody sweatshirt and Ghanaian caori shell necklace, carrying a backpack and a "Si, Se Puede!" Obama poster. The citizen journalist asked Derrick why he supported Obama's health care plan and when Derrick began to respond, the interviewer snapped, "Do you have any specifics? Do you have any technical versus emotional specifics?! What are their policies? Do you know?" Respectfully and cheerfully, the seeming kid launched into an expert health care policy analysis, eventually wearing down his crochety interrogator's defenses and preconceptions, until at the end, the two men were slapping each other five.

Uploaded onto YouTube, the video received well over a million hits, becoming one of the most viewed online videos of 2008. Suddenly, CNN, BET and other major media outlets were contacting Derrick, asking him to blog and report for them. Even The Economist, not particularly known for its progressive sympathies, wrote about him. Next thing he knew, he was receiving enticing phone calls from Hollywood mega-agencies. Vanity Fair's Editor of Creative Development, David Friend, wrote a piece about the new YouTube phenom and Soulfège.

Eventually, Oprah's "BFF," Gayle King, interviewed Derrick several times on her radio show, calling him "the voice of a generation". And, ultimately, about a month ago, Oprah Radio the Grande Dame of all media herself interviewed Ashong for her Soul Series. She introduced him to the world this way:

I really don't believe...in coincidences. But I believe that everything is interconnected and everything happens for a reason. So...I know it's a sign...I first heard the name Derrick Ashong when the head of my development suggested, 'You know there's this guy we ran into. His name's Derrick Ashong. You should meet him.' Then at a west coast meeting for my new television network OWN, the name Derrick Ashong was broached again by a few West Coast executives at this meeting. And then, one day, out of the blue, Gayle King had interviewed Derrick Ashong on her radio show and Gayle insisted that Derrick Ashong...So when you hear a name like, any kind of name shows up in your life more than one time and you keep hearing that, that means something's going on with that person. So, lo and behold, I present you today, musician and activist and social entrepreneur, Derrick Ashong. Finally, we get to meet.

And, without missing a beat, Derrick responded warmly, "Finally."

On Wednesday, December 16, at a live interactive concert at TheRoomLive.com and Oprah.com, Soulfege announced that Derrick will have his own show on Oprah Radio beginning in January 2010.

(Reprinted from my original piece at The Community Marketing Blog-Off)

Sanctuary in Harmony: How Music is Saving Lives in LA

2009-12-03T05:38:36-05:00

REPRINTED FROM THE COMMUNITY MARKETING BLOG-OFF, first published December 2, 2009. Please click on that site and comment there to help me win the contest and draw mass attention to arts education.

(Photo: Harmony Projects founder Margaret Martin and seventh-grader Kiana Coronado-Ziadie receive an award from First Lady Michelle Obama. Credit: White House)

"We look at each student, not as a deficit to be fixed, but as an asset to be nurtured and developed," whispered Margaret Martin, founder of the Harmony Project, as I tried to keep pace with her determined, long-limbed stride between the classrooms of the stunning L.A. County High School for the Arts. This was early on a Saturday morning in October and, rather than high-school students gracing the halls, middle-school students from the Harmony Project were availing themselves of the futuristic building's state-of-the-art acoustics, performing classical music and jazz for their poor, mostly immigrant families. In one room, exhilarated 'tweens demonstrated the concept of improvisation. In another, they taught their hesitant parents to play a song on their own classical instruments. Outside, a gaggle of youth beat out a heart-thumping rhythm on overturned buckets. While we buzzed from venue to venue, I noticed two things: 1.) In every room, Margaret's laser-like gaze trained on the kids' reactions - what excited them, moved them, made them laugh. 2.) Margaret doesn't stop for anyone. Without her telling me, I knew she expected me to match her clip, absorb everything she told me, and eventually write about what I had seen. I was happy to oblige.

Margaret, herself a trained musician, is a woman on a mission - a decidedly successful one, as evidenced by the $10,000 Coming Up Taller award for excellence in arts education she just received from Michelle Obama on November 4, the one-year anniversary of the President's historic election.

I had met Margaret at a campaign event for Tom Torlakson, who is running for California State Superintendent of Schools. Instantly, I'd wondered as to the identity of the hip, statuesque blonde standing in the corner of the host's palatial home, asking the candidate hard-hitting questions about arts education. At first, I'd thought she was a public school music teacher. In a sense, I was right. But instead of teaching 30 kids, she has, with the Harmony Project, extended access to classical music instruction and instruments to over 750 children and counting, in Los Angeles' very poorest and most dangerous neighborhoods.

It all started when Margaret's five-and-a-half-year-old son, a violin prodigy, was busking on an L.A. sidewalk. He'd been playing two years already and a giant talent radiate from his tiny body, attracting a wide array of listeners. Margaret remembers how astonished she felt when a crowd of gang members approached, entranced by the little boy's music. Everything about their body language and words showed deep interest, honor and respect. They threw a few crumpled up bills from their pockets into the violin case. Margaret remembers:

I was being trained to intervene in social problems [as a graduate student in public health, with a focus on community health]. But I learned more from that moment with the gang members than from almost anything in graduate school. I had a background in behavioral science, but we were going at things in a way that was clearly not getting us the product we were seeking. From the respect those young men showed this little white kid they didn't know, I learned how important respect is, how important access is. I realized that these hard-core LA gang bangers would have given their eye teeth to have someone look at them as a precious resource, give them an instrument and five hours a week of rehearsal. A lot of these kids have no father at home. They have parents stressed out with 2, 3 jobs. We haven't created programs to engage them, while gangs are actively recruiting.

So, nine years ago, with a $9,000 check from the Rotary Club of Hollywood, Margaret founded the Harmony Project, with the vision of providing instruments and instruction to the most forgotten, disenfranchised kids in all of L.A. - a city renowned for its vast population of forgotten, disenfranchised kids. Margaret puts it this way:

We get them early. Kids start with us as first-graders and, by the time they get to be 12 or 13 . . . well, now I have one who's applying to shi-shi boarding schools on the East Coast. She lives in a gang-infested, horrible neighborhood. But she plays flute, sings in choir, is self-possessed, willing to give it a shot, knows how to present herself, how to work and achieve - all skills that are generalizeable and transferable. Music is just a vehicle for the life skills that it develops in an organic and joyful way. The kids gain a skill set that they can use as a means of social inclusion all their lives. Every body wants the musicians. If you have a party, don't you want to invite musicians? Every one wants to hang with them. They make magic.

She emphasizes that "initial catalytic support," like that of the Rotary Club is essential, and difficult, for a burgeoning non-profiit to find. "[The Harmony Project] was just an idea 9 years ago. But ideas can have power when you put action behind them. I tell our supporters that youth have powerful ideas. What happens when you put action and support behind them?"

Today, the Harmony Project receives about $1.2 million per year, supporting 7 different full-time youth orchestras with students from more than more than 60 schools. Half of the funding comes from private donors and foundations, the other half from the partnerships with the LA Philharmonic (and its Youth Orchestra LA or YOLA),* LA Unified School District, and LA City College - all of which help the Harmony Project obtain rehearsal rooms, venues, instruments and other resources.

(Photo: Leslie Cardenas, front, and Sara Flores rehearse as part of the Harmony Project in this 2007 photo. Credit: Richard Hartog / Los Angeles Times)

Right now, the Harmony Project is fundraising together with the Mayor's Office of Gang Reduction and Youth Development. They have highlighted 12 gang reduction zones (areas with a high documented rate of violent gang crime) in which Harmony Project serves as an official part of the city's strategy to reduce gangs by keeping kids away from predators, and helping them develop discipline, persistence, self-esteem and accountability which will lead them to success in school and in life.

The Los Angeles DA's office has put in an official request to Congresswoman Linda T. Sanchez' office to introduce music programs in two new districts. 17 more public schools (4 middle, 13 elementary) have recently requested programs, hoping to develop pipelines between middle and elementary schools, and then on to high schools - at which point, city-wide instruction happens all in one place, at LA City College. LAUSD, through their Beyond the Bell after-school system, have offered to cover one-third of emerging program costs, but Harmony Project must raise the other two thirds. "With enough sponsorship, we can roll the programs out in the most troubled parts of our city," Margaret Martin says. "That's what we're working hard to find funding to do."

In the past few years, Harmony Poject has managed to offer $5,000 scholarships to all students going on to 2- or 4-year institutions of higher education. The students must have remained enrolled in the music program for at least 3 years, have graduated from high school, gained entrance into college, and written an essay about their plans. As long as each student maintains a C average or better in college, he or she will continue receiving their scholarship for the duration of their matriculation. Last year, three students won the scholarship. This year, it was nine. "We are blessed that we have a donor who has agreed to fund 200 such scholarships," says Margaret. Those are good numbers.

One not-so-good number is Los Angeles' high school dropout rate of 57.1%. However, kids who stay in the Harmony Project all the way through school, graduate at a rate of 100%.* Every child must show the program administrators all of their report cards. "Discipline, focus and time management are required for music. They transfer to school work," Margaret continues. Furthermore, "you have your on crew and cohort. Kids mentor one another [and encourage each other to do better.]"

In addition to administrative, artistic, financial and peer support, the kids benefit from rigorous, research-based educational and sociological methodologies:

One of the key factors in the success of our program is that we commit to our children over their entire childhood. We stick with them until they graduate from high school and we commit to helping their transition to higher education. Some kids come from homelessness and great upheaval in their lives - this is the one source of stability for some of them. We transcend [the challenges of] schools, communities, homelessness and other kinds of upheaval. We offer them a supportive, positive, consistent experience. They will continue to grow in ways that help them to develop their own talent and abilities. And become their best self.

But don't just take Margaret's word for it. One girl, whose initials are A.D., writes in an essay about her experience as a Harmony Project kid:

I come from one of the most poor neighborhoods in L.A. because of having Having [sic] an Autistic [sic] brother I suffered from many thing [sic] anxiety, Depression [sic], thoughts of suicide, and low-self esteem [sic] and sometimes I suffered severe Panic [sic] attacks, I thought I would have what I had for my whole life . . . Music has really turned my life around . . . I have found harmony in the art of choir. I don't take choir like just lessons to entertain me but I take it as my sanctuary. I am glad and proud of being in the Harmony Project.

Another student writes, "My school work has improved tremendously. My classes have risen to a higher level. My community enjoys the way I play my instruments. My family is proud of me because I am accomplishing something no one in my family has ever done . . . the Harmony Project is the best thing that could have ever happened in my life."

Recently, nine dedicated students earned their place at an event that would have been the highlight of anyone's life. Five of the Harmony Project's best violinists and four of its best cellists were invited, with Margaret Martin, to the White House to receive the Coming Up Taller Award and to perform for the First Lady of the United States of America. "I dissolved when Michelle Obama began to speak," said Margaret, who seems a pretty tough person to ruffle:

I just dissolved. She articulated every way in which these youth arts programs can transform at-risk kids' lives. She knows how little support we get. And then her voice hardened, 'Which is why it is important that we make you welcome in this house.' The kids were so amazed. It was sort of surreal. Never in their wildest dreams could they imagine that they would be invited to participate in an event at the White House. They couldn't believe the access their instruments provided them. It shook their world. They asked themselves, 'What else is possible?' and were talking about plans for college.

A program as successful as the Harmony Project grows quickly. Today, it has twice the students it had only three years ago. However, in a time of economic crisis, when public and private benefactors alike are cutting back drastically on their giving, administrators of a successful program must remain vigilant about maintaining their upward momentum.According to Margaret, Steve Venz, Head of Music for LAUSD, announced that the school district must reduce its budget by 450 million additional dollars over the next couple of years, which will result - unless a change in plans occurs - with 50% of over 700 elementary arts teachers losing their jobs - saving the system only a little over $14 million. In 2011-12, LAUSD intends to cut the other 50% of the arts teachers, eliminating all arts programs in all school districts within two years.

"This is the 2nd largest school district in the nation," Margaret expounded. She went on to explain the backward fiscal thinking behind arts education budget cuts:

Arts programs keep kids in schools. When kids drop out of schools, schools lose apportionment from the state, so they lose money and the community gets the additional burden of uneducated kids loose in the community with nothing to do, who fall prey to drug dealers, gang members and sexual predators. It's really a false economy that the esteemed managers of our state government have painted themselves into this corner and are seeking to solve their problems at the expense of our kids. And it's never at the expense of kids from affluent homes, is it? Instead of investing in our most vulnerable kids to make them the leaders we need to improve our community, we ignore them, we push them away and then when they get in trouble, we lock them up. It doesn't make sense, and fundamentally, it's not cost-effective. I'm a fiscal conservative and it's a waste of money and it's a waste of talent and lives. Violence knows no zip code. We get what we pay for when it comes to our communities. When we don't invest in our communities, well you see what we have . . . It's actually cheaper and more effective to address and head off problems while they are developing than try to deal with them after they'd developed. We just don't tend to think or work that way in this country. But if we play our cards right and are able to deliver our programs, perhaps we will be able to deliver a sea change in that regard.

With a national award, rapidly replicating music programs that still allow room for local identities and methodologies, and a partnership with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and its international sensation musical director, Gustavo Dudamel* - Margaret Martin and the Harmony Project are well on their way to contributing to a sea change in how our nation thinks about the value of arts education.

Still, in this economic climate, even a successful program like the Harmony Project must fight hard to hold on to its funds, to say nothing of raising more for its necessary expansion. The program must prioritize where to spend its precious budget. "Most of our funds go to pay our teachers because the magic happens between the students and the teachers, that relationship building over the years," says Margaret. "By committing to the kids, we're demonstrating what commitment looks like and, over time, they learn to commit to themselves. It's not rocket science. It's pretty basic stuff."

If you would like to see 50 violinits and 50 cellists from the Harmony Project perform in a thrilling hip-hop youth orchestra, conducted by famed composer and arranger, Diane Louie of American Idol fame, you can attend their open-house rehearsal day, coming up on Saturday December 12, from 10-Noon at 2303 S. Figueroa Way, Los Angeles, CA 90007 (off Figueroa, just north of USC). Take the 110 to Adams Blvd. Exit, building straight ahead across exit off ramp.

* I first learned about the Harmony Project, at least a month before I'd met Margaret or even knew of her existence, when I was writing a piece for the Americans for the Arts' Arts Education Blog and the Huffington Post about Maestro Gustavo Dudamel and the Youth Orchestra LA.

*I found and documented a similar differential between the Washington, D.C. high school drop out-rate and the graduation rate of the Washington, D.C. Youth Orchestra in my keynote speech for the Yale School of Music's biennial Music Educators' Symposium, which I published in the Huffington Post this past summer.

*Dudamel had held, as a condition of his coming to work with the LA Phil, that he get to help low-income kids learn music. The LA Phil was able to grant his wish because Margaret Martin - who'd never heard of Venezuela's El Sistema from which Dudamel emerges - when she founded the Harmony Project, already had a program in place with which the orchestra could collaborate.

El Sistema in LA, Part II

2009-12-02T23:37:37-05:00

REPRINTED FROM THE AMERICANS FOR THE ARTS' ARTS EDUCATION BLOG, SEPTEMBER - 25 - 2009

"We are not robots," declared Susan Siman, whom I described in Part I of this piece as the guest conductor and teacher visiting Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) from Venezuela's ground-breaking network of youth orchestras, known as El Sistema.

She continued: "Put your heart into it more. Where is the passion? Where is the heart? Make me cry! Very good, violins. Much better. But it could be even better. I know you would know the part if I asked you to play one-by-one. The hard thing is to play together. Make Los Angeles tremble. Eat a light breakfast the day of the Hollywood Bowl concert. If you have a heavy breakfast you could get nervous and [gestures throwing up]. Don't look at Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt in the front row. Look at the conductor. Have your part learned by memory. Enjoy every moment."

Senora Siman's jovial fire, her demand for excellence, artistry and pride, her humor and pragmatic advice all exhibit themselves in her erstwhile student, Los Angeles Philharmonic Music Director Designate Gustavo Dudamel, whom I first saw at work with Venezuela's Simon Bolivar National Youth Orchestra in the 2008 German documentary, "The Promise of Music."

While a conducting talent as prodigious as Mr. Dudamel's hails from the musical gods, his teaching methodology results from a system of professional development that El Sistema's mastermind, Jose Antonio Abreu, and his legions of teachers around Venezuela, have refined since 1975.

Today - thanks to Maestro Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic - some of our city's most disadvantaged students benefit from this vibrant brand of artistic instruction. The children, however, are not the only ones who benefit. So do young teaching artists, like the talented classical, rock and hip-hop violinist who currently serves as the Harmony Project's Program Manager for the South L.A. Expo Center Program - Paloma Udovic, whom I also mentioned in Part I of this post. Extraordinarily well-trained and accomplished musicians in their own rights, Ms. Udovic and her colleague Bruce Kiesling, Conductor for Orchestras at the Expo Center, support and serve as Spanish-English interpreters for visiting artists like Senora Siman. Undoubtedly, they absorb a powerfully motivating teaching style.

However, this style does not propagate by osmosis alone. The LA Phil holds workshops for teachers that model El Sistema's methods, "unpack[ing its concepts and ideas," as Gretchen Nielsen, the Philharmonic's Director of Education Initiatives, said to me last Saturday. Ms. Nielsen then used an endangered word: "ideals." The system's ideals can be characterized as:

1. Intensity of Instruction - It is better to learn quickly and consistently, in order to engage and sustain attention and cultivate practice habits.
2. Joy - Engagement before information.
3. Community - Learning in groups

A third and very exciting tier of professional development that the LA Phil has undertaken involves the Dudamel Fellowship Program, beginning in this, the 2009-10 season. Handpicked by Maestro Dudamel himself, four brilliant, young conductors from around the world - two of whom must always come from El Sistema - arrive for respective 6-week stints.

Each fellow not only observes Dudamel and other conductors, but also serves as a cover (or understudy) conductor for the Philharmonic, and a mentor for education programs, including YOLA. Dudamel's conducting protégés also conduct the Philharmonic's "youth concerts" (concerts for, not by, the youth). A delightful side note: YOLA learns at least one piece the Philharmonic plays in its youth concert repertoire, so that when children attend a concert, they already have what Ms. Nielsen calls "ownership of the music."

This year's Dudamel fellows are David Afkham of Germany; Diego Mathuez of Venezuela; Perry So, originally from Hong Kong; and Christian Vasquez, also of Venezuela.

Thus, El Sistema commences its journey around the world.

El Sistema in LA

2009-12-02T23:33:57-05:00

Reprinted from the Americans for the Arts' Arts Education Blog, September 22, 2009

When Arianna Huffington asked me at an Obama fundraiser to write for her and I drafted my first Huffington Post piece, "President Obama's Arts", I never would have anticipated that a little less than a year later, John Abodeely would invite me to participate in this Americans for the Arts blogging event. I feel honored to write alongside esteemed arts and arts education advocates and practitioners, including Arnie Aprill and Jessica Mele - both of whom I featured in a later Huffington Post piece, "Why Arts Education is a Matter of Social Justice and Why it Will Save the World" (Part I and Part 2. The latter post landed me - a humble actress and political activist - the keynote address at the Yale School of Music's biennial Music Educators' Symposium, thanks to the interest of Associate Dean Michael Yaffe. And here I am.

Since the Yale experience ignited in my heart a renewed passion for classical music, I have become obsessed with Venezuela's El Sistema, founded by the great Jose Antonio Abreu, which teaches even that country's poorest children to play instruments from the time they can talk.

The other morning, I attended a rehearsal of the Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA), the brainchild of classical music wunderkind Gustavo Dudamel, who himself was a student in El Sistema. In fact, one of the ways in which the Los Angeles Philharmonic wooed Mr. Dudamel to the position of Musical Director - according to Gretchen Nielsen, the L.A. Phil's Director of Educational Initiatives - was by assuring him that he could help start something like El Sistema here in Los Angeles.

Previously, the L.A. Phil's educational initiatives were more traditionally "American" - in other words, focusing on one-on-one instruction. The Venezualan approach that the maestro has introduced focuses on learning instruments in groups, engaging interest before instruction, playing with joy, and developing community. "The orchestra," Ms. Nielsen states, "is a microcosm for community." She sees it as a model of concentric circles, positively influencing the child, then the family, than the larger community.

The young musicians come from within a 5-mile radius of the Expo Center, in which L.A.'s Department of Parks and Recreation has donated a number of state-of-the-art rehearsal rooms to YOLA and the small not-for-profit Harmony Project (which donates free instruments and teaching artists to YOLA kids). The center positively shimmers in the midst of its humble surroundings in L.A.'s South Central and is guarded with impeccable security. It has top-notch Olympic swimming pools, basketball courts, tracks and other facilities, and offers a wide array of classes to the local community, which is predominately minority and predominately poor. Except for 3 weeks off in August, the children learn and rehearse classical music at the center three days during the school week, for an hour at a time, and for three more hours starting at 9am on Saturday mornings.

Recently, Susan Siman, the head of El Sistema's biggest nucleo and the former teacher of Maestro Dudamel, rehearsed the kids for their big concert at the Hollywood Bowl on October 3, during which Dudamel will conduct their performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, Ode to Joy. During her hour with the kids, before she had to rush to LAX to fly back to Venezuela, Senora Siman shouted affectionately in Spanish at the children (who range from about 7 to 16), while Paloma Udovic of the Harmony Project interpreted for the few non-Spanish-speaking kids. "More pressure on the strings!" Siman emoted. "It's okay if you break them - I'll pay for them. And what if the camera catches you with ugly bow hands? Nice hand position makes beautiful music. And clean your instruments for the Hollywood Bowl concert. Everything needs to be shining on that day - your shoes, everything!"

Tentative and tired at first, the children eventually rose to meet Senora Siman's level of passion, intensity and alertness. They had clearly internalized her message of artistry and pride in self, as they sat forward in their chairs, the feet of some not even touching the ground. Several kids had decorated their instrument cases with stickers and colorful patches. Their mothers, women from places as disparate as Ethiopia and El Salvador, sat on the perimeter listening carefully, some holding crying babies.

One mother, Mirna Quintanilla, raises her three daughters, Adria, Arian and Amy, 16, 13 and 10, respectively, on her salary as a medical assistant. All three girls have learned and performed in YOLA since its inception two and a half years ago - and all three play two instruments each, which requires that they attend classes and rehearsals at least 5 days a week. Senora Quintanilla said, "My girls never watch t.v. There is music everywhere in the living room." Adria, the eldest, chimed in, "I can play Michael Jackson on my cello. 'Beat it'!"

While her girls rehearse at the Expo Center, Senora Quintanilla avails herself of the track downstairs for her newfound hobby, jogging. She also participates in the parent programs that the LA Phil has set up, which include teaching parents how to listen to and appreciate classical music, how to create a positive practice environment for their children, and even how to play the recorder.

"I am a single mother, " says Quintanilla. "But my children are so busy now, they don't have time to think about missing anything." She added that she finds the parent programs a really positive way to develop community, allowing everyone to socialize and pull for each other. She also added, "We don't pay anything. Instruments, lessons, extra time with teachers - it's all free. It's a quality education. With it, my girls will be able to do anything. Adria wants to be a dentist. Arian wants to be a lawyer. The little one doesn't know yet. But this program will help them prepare for college, help them get scholarships, if they stick with it for five years."

When I asked Arian, the middle girl, how she felt about performing at the Hollywood Bowl, she gave me the thumbs up.

Senora Quintanilla expressed only one concern: "With the economy, I hope this program can keep going."

Both Ms. Nielsen of the LA Phil and Ms. Udovic of the Harmony Project seem to believe that there exist sufficient funds at this time for YOLA to continue, with rigorous financial plans having been drafted for the next 10 years. However, they would need more funds in order to expand. To that end, the LA Phil is courting at least 40 other arts, arts education and community organizations to try to create a network that will replicate throughout the Los Angeles area what is happening already in places like the Expo Center - and begin to develop a uniquely American version of El Sistema.

Historic Community Marketing Blog-Off

2009-12-01T13:26:59-05:00

Between now and December 12, I will be posting blogs as part of the 2nd Community Marketing Blog-Off -- from which I stand to win a great deal of publicity for the work I do supporting arts education. So, please follow my very exciting posts faithfully and help children gain the confidence and engagement in learning that only the life-saving skills of arts education can provide.

To Obama with Love: Nothing Less Than a Public Option

2009-10-24T16:17:11-04:00

Here's a video made by Lyn Goldfarb and Dustin Slaughter of Congressional District 33 North for Change/ Obamawood. In it, volunteers, including me, talk about why a public option at the very least is the only way forward on health care reform.

Health Care Protesters Arrested in Downtown L.A.

2009-10-19T13:05:33-04:00

Thanks to Lyn Goldfarb and Carol Newton of CD33 North for Change for this information.

October 15, twelve people were arrested in an act of civil disobedience at Blue Cross Headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, protesting the health care insurance profiteering at the expense of providing for the health care of patients. Blue Cross refused to meet with the protestors.
Please look at the video and let the health care insurance companies know that enough is enough, that we need real health care reform. And please circulate the video to everyone you know.