Dear Subscriber,

This February Ensemble celebrates the many ways our work brings us closer to those around us. A Nairobi music program casts a wider net by incorporating dance into their programming, while an El Sistema Japan site changes things up in rehearsal and sees new connections blossom. In Southern California, a shared moment of vulnerability becomes the cornerstone of an award-winning arts program.

Our editorial from world-famous percussionist Evelyn Glennie reminds us to “be present” for one another, while our guest perspective shares the ways that the cultural sector can impact climate action. Our AIM series continues with a look at their five Pillars of Practice, which strengthen our teaching as an exercise does a muscle. And our new Ambassador cohort members introduce themselves in their own words.

Finally, we'd like to wish a happy Chinese New Year to those who celebrate, and a happy Black History Month to our readers in the U.S. Wherever you are, we hope these stories center you and inspire you to keep making change.

Thanks for reading and sharing,

The Ensemble Team

Joanna Priwieziencew, who has danced with companies in the U.S., Europe, and Egypt, and now divides her time between the U.S. and Kenya, where she heads the dance program of Ghetto Classics

On the crowded roads of Korogocho, with its 300,000 inhabitants on 1.5 sq. km, its tin homes with no running water and open sewage, and its backdrop of Dandora (an immense, ever-growing, and constantly burning mountain of garbage), one can scarcely imagine encountering a center filled with live arts. But that is the home of Ghetto Classics, where every corner, every room vibrates with music—from Chopin to Tanzanian composer Adam Salim.

Evelyn Glennie CH. DBE, international percussionist and Sistema Scotland Ambassador

Music and speech are our mediums for this, but we don’t always need a sound in order to listen. Presence is the true instrument we all play. Presence can be as loud or as soft, as busy and complex, or as simple and sparse as we please. Presence allows everything to matter; it is not beholden to budgets or equipment.

Brandon Steppe, Founder and Executive Director, The David's Harp Foundation

We adults are rarely transparent with young people. This is true for several reasons—we want to respect their boundaries; we need to maintain our authority in the room; we make ourselves malleable at the expense of honesty—but the biggest might be because it’s so easy to screw up.

Katya Gorbatiouk, Advisory Council Member, Global Leaders Program; Board Member, London Music Fund; Advisory Council Member, London Symphony Orchestra

Why does a composer venture into the Arctic? Perhaps because it is one of the places our global climate emergency is on clearest display. Auerbach’s collaborator, Enric Sala, the founder of National Geographic’s Pristine Seas Project, observed that if you look at our Earth from space, the Arctic appears as its heart, a white heart expanding and contracting. The expansions are getting noticeably smaller every year.

Sara Watanabe, Soma Program Coordinator

When children do this for the first time, they often begin with uncertainty. But they quickly realize that they are hearing the music in a different way. They also come to understand that each of them has an important role to play in taking responsibility and shaping the music.

Fiona Cunningham, Director, Academy for Impact through Music (AIM)

Our five Pillars of Practice not only articulate areas in which our Firebird Fellows commit to stretch with their students. They also underpin AIM’s approach to teacher training. Teachers need and deserve to participate in empowering experiential learning that informs how they support their students.

Here is our first dispatch from our new Ambassador cohort. If you haven’t gotten to meet them yet, here's your chance!

 The Ensemble newsletters are sent in collaboration with

Longy School of Music of Bard College.

For more information: Longy.edu/ensemble-news