National Endowment for the Arts Award + El Sistema USA Partnership Update
Dear friends,
We are honored to have received a “Grant for Arts Project” award from the National Endowment for the Arts for a project in collaboration with El Sistema USA® (ESUSA)! This project will commission composers from our initiative, Hear Her Song, to arrange their songs for El Sistema USA® affiliate youth ensembles. This collaboration will not only provide youth ensembles with new music from the Hear Her Song canon, but also provide professional opportunities for our composers, and expose youth to music of modern female composers that highlights stories of women leadership. Furthermore, these composers represent divergent musical styles and identity backgrounds, inviting a dialogue that fosters mutual respect for the diverse beliefs and values of all persons and groups. We are thrilled to announce our partnering El Sistema based organizations!
We are also thrilled to spotlight our Hear Her Song artists who will be working with these organizations! In addition to arranging their songs into orchestral compositions, our artists will host virtual workshops with the musicians of the programs, along with a panel discussion for a wider audience. We are pleased to introduce our composers, Faye Chiao, Dom Jones, Morley and Madeline Myers!
More about Hear Her Song
Hear Her Song is our debut initiative honoring distinguished female leaders through new songs written by female composers and songwriters across the globe. Each artist connects with an honoree, and then uses her words and stories directly to create a song amplifying messages of women’s leadership and challenges they face in contemporary culture. It is both a musical commemoration of women’s achievements, and a call to action to advocate for gender equality.
This collaborative project aims to amplify women leader’s extraordinary voices while also providing opportunities for female composers and performers to use their own. Since its inception in 2017, Hear Her Song has commissioned over 40 songs, honored over 38 leaders, employed 65 artists, and collaborated with 10 partner organizations, involving a total of 11 countries.
In March of 2021 and in celebration of Hear Her Song’s 4th anniversary, we released the inaugural Hear Her Song album debut! You can listen to the album below:
More about El Sistema USA® (ESUSA)
El Sistema USA® (ESUSA) is a national alliance of individuals and organizations inspired by the Venezuelan model of El Sistema. El Sistema USA’s mission is to support and grow a nationwide movement of programs inspired by El Sistema to effect social change through music for children with the fewest resources and the greatest need.Using collective music instruction to support social change through music for youth in under-resourced communities, the goal of El Sistema is to increase access to opportunity and build social capital through academic and musical excellence. ESUSA’s diverse membership across the United States represents programs that serve some of the most vulnerable communities and children throughout the country. Members collaborate to share resources, values, aspirations, and advocacy efforts. The members of ESUSA envision a world where every child has access to music through intensive ensemble training and performance to promote positive youth development and thriving communities.