Year-End Newsletter: Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays from TCP to you and yours! This past year was filled with new collaborations, performances, conversations and connections with many communities from all over the world. We are so thankful to the TCP community, and wish you and your loved ones a happy and healthy new year!

2022 Highlights

The Cultural Diplomacy Initiative

This year marked the launch of TCP’s latest initiative, the Cultural Diplomacy Initiative at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy of Tufts University. This initiative is a repository of innovative thinking about emerging challenges and opportunities for cultural diplomacy, a convening center for leaders in the field, a hub for cooperation among other programs in this arena, and a source of education and training. Its mission is to activate the power of culture as a tool to build bridges through cultural diplomacy initiatives which serve foreign policy objectives. The initiative hosts an ongoing study group on soft power and cultural diplomacy, a seminar series, and a fellows program. We are thrilled to share our program highlights!

  • Over 60 countries and languages represented by members of the study group.

  • Over 400 registered members worldwide.

  • Over 5 different sectors represented by members of the study group including business, academia, government, NGO, health, arts and more.

  • Over 20 breakout sessions and discussions for each study group session

  • 7 members of the inaugural Fellowship Program providing research papers, database collection, new initiatives and artistic performances/presentations.

  • 5 Study Group Sessions:

National Endowment for the Arts & El Sistema® Award Performances!

We are honored to have received a ‘Grant for Arts Project’ from the National Endowment for the Arts for a project in collaboration with El Sistema USA® (ESUSA)! This project commissioned HHS artists Faye Chiao, Dom Jones, Morley and Madeline Myers to arrange their songs for El Sistema USA® affiliate youth ensembles including Intempo, Junea Alaska Music Matters, Make Music Nola and Sistema Utah.

These collaborations not only provided 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. We are SO thrilled to share their performances below!

The Triple Threat Academy

This year marked the successful completion of the inaugural Triple Threat Academy, an ambitious 3 month intensive online capacity building program in collaboration with Jakarta Performing Arts Community (JPAC), US Embassy Jakarta, American Voices and the Arts Envoy Initiative of U.S. Department of State. Designed for young aspiring Indonesian artists, this program aimed to connect professional U.S. Broadway artist to mentor and empower local artist to use their artistry to improve their livelihood, address social issues and shape a more inclusive society. As the title suggests, the program intended to train participants in three aspects of artist development: performance artistry, advocacy and entrepreneurship.

Among the many objectives of the program, one of the most challenging one was ‘expanding digital opportunities for cultural diplomacy in the post COVID-19 period”.


We are so proud of all1,062 participants involved in the academy, and are so thrilled to share their performances highlights below!

Hear Her Song: Wellesley College Masterclass

This year, we worked with students at Wellesley College with a vocal Masterclass featuring songs from the Hear Her Song Canon! It was a powerful experience to have songs from the canon performed by students taking their own approach to these women’s’ stories and compositions.

Smile Ambassador: 20th Anniversary Worldwide Painting Giveaway

2023 marks the 20th anniversary of CDI Fellow, Bren Bataclan’s Smile's Project. In 2003, Bren launched the initiative and began giving away paintings in public spaces with a note saying, “This painting is yours if you promise to smile at random people more often.” Since then, he has given away over 3,000 paintings in close to 80 different countries and to all 50 states in the U.S.His next goal is to give away paintings to over 100 new countries- including countries members of this study group are from!

People from over 80 countries have found Bren’s paintings in public spaces.

Bren invites anyone in the countries he hopes to reach to reach out to him to become a Smile Ambassador. The steps are simple- if you or anyone you know are living in the country Bren hopes to reach, then you will email Bren who will then send you two paintings- one to keep and one to give away. In order for Bren's project to kickoff, we need to help raise 25% of his fundraising goal! Click on the link below to learn more and help Bren with his Worldwide painting giveaway!

Thank you once again for another year of celebrating cultural connections through the arts and conversation. We look forward to moving into 2023 together!

Warmest regards,

The Canales Project

Carla Dirlikov