Presentation Day in Providence

Photo by Sebastian Ruth

Community MusicWorks already has a tradition of asking its four Fellows to present their ideas in an "Alternative Models" seminar halfway through each year. This year, we were able to build on that tradition by linking it to this course and its Providence participants.

According to Sebastian Ruth, CMW's founder, this idea about coming up with alternative models (as in alternatives to CMW) was derived from my suggestion, early on, that surely a string quartet residency could work just as well in a wealthy suburban location, if that's what its members were motivated to create. Sebastian didn't see the appeal in spending time thinking about how to better serve a community that already has plenty of resources, but he--along with Minna Choi, CMW's Fellowship Program Director--decided to create an annual opportunity for Fellows to share their thinking about what else they might create, inspired by their exposure to the CMW model, and receive constructive feedback from the rest of the staff and members of CMW's extended community. And then sometimes the Fellows even make it happen. 

Here is an example, courtesy of Josie Davis, of one of the presentation handouts.