June Newsletter
Dear friends,
We hope that you are having a wonderful start to your summer! As always, we are pleased to share some exciting updates with you.
Hear Her Song Returns in 2022 with New Composers and Honorees!
We are thrilled to share that Hear Her Song will continue with a new round of composers and honorees! Our lineup of honorees have been nominated by our partner, Vital Voices Global Partnership. Honorees include Jamira Burley, The Dolls Clan, Victoria Kisyombe, Rouba Mhaissen and Priti Paktar. The composers writing songs in honor of these women include Sofía Élan, Manisha Maru, Alida McKeon, Giselle Felice and Olivia Rodriguez. We are looking forward to these five new songs aimed at celebrating both women’s leadership and artistry. As our composers will be working on these new songs for the next few months, during this time we invite you to check out the inaugural Hear Her Song album, proudly launched in March 2021. We hope you find inspiration from these empowering stories!
The Future of Cultural Diplomacy
This month, we had the honor of speaking with UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay in the third seminar series of The Future of Cultural Diplomacy. In this session, Director-General Azoulay provided notable examples of the power of cultural diplomacy such as its ability to “open spaces for dialogue” and “create links that survive political cycles.” She said that cultural diplomacy is “most powerful when it can create dialogue in tense or post-conflict situations.” As an example, she recalled UNESCO’s joint cultural heritage inscription of the traditional wrestling (ssireum/씨름) between North and South Korea in 2018. She also referenced UNESCO’s joint inscription of couscous traditions between Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco, and Tunisia in 2020. Very importantly, and speaking to the spirit of this initiative, she described how culture “goes directly to the heart of the people” even though it is often underestimated by governments. Continuing on, she notes that “when cultural issues are not taken into account, it’s a handicap because you miss one of the long-term, structural ways to defend a model of society and values.” She hopes to see recognition of this reflected at the 2021 G20 Rome Summit. If you were unable to attend, we invite you to watch the recording online!
Since April, as part of the Future of Cultural Diplomacy seminar series, we have also hosted conversations alongside Ambassador Nicholas Burns on the future of cultural diplomacy with Nancy Szalwinski, Director of Cultural Programs at the U.S Department of State and on soft power and cultural diplomacy with Ambassador (ret.) Caroline Kennedy and Harvard University Professor, Emeritus Joseph Nye. We enclose the recordings to these events below!
The Future of U.S. Cultural Diplomacy with Nancy Szalwinski
Soft Power of Diplomacy: A Conversation with Ambassador Caroline Kennedy and Professor Joseph Nye
Congratulations to Hear Her Song Artist, Tania León!
A HUGE congratulations to one of Hear Her Song Artists, Tania León on winning the 2021 Pulitzer Prize Award in Music! Tania's winning orchestral work 'Stride' is described as a "musical journey full of surprise, with powerful brass and rhythmic motifs that incorporate Black music traditions from the U.S. and the Caribbean into a Western orchestral fabric." Premiered by the New York Philharmonic on Feb. 13 2020, 'Stride' is part of 'Project 19', a commissioning program featuring 19 women composers to write music honoring the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
According to León, her success was a dream of her mother and grandmother. In her words, "they created a dream and I grabbed the dream and went into the world, and here I am".
Learn more about ‘Stride’ here!
CultureFix Feature: Carla Canales
On June 9, 2021, TCP Founder and Director Carla Canales was featured in Meridian International Center’s Culturefix, its inaugural cultural diplomacy celebration to honor the power of the arts and cultures to help fix global challenges faced by people, communities and the planet. The virtual program featured conversations at the intersection of diplomacy, culture, and the arts, the announcement of the Meridian Cultural Diplomacy Awards, and special performances. In this event, Carla moderated the ‘Peacebuilding and Reconciliation Through Art and Culture’ session featuring Pedro Reyes (visual artist), Art Smith (chef) and Stacy White, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Professional and Cultural Exchanges, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, U.S. Department of State. The discussion focused on how arts and culture have long played a vital role in fostering an environment of peacebuilding, cultural understanding, and reconciliation by bringing people together around shared values to address the social, political, and economic challenges we all face. The Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy is rooted in the idea that culture is the most effective tool in tackling critical issues that impact our local, national, and global communities. Cultural practitioners and educators are vital to the advancement of critical solutions and productive dialogue, thus creating a foundation for impactful conflict transformation and reconciliation efforts. You can watch the session here!
We Are The Children: A Celebration of AAPI Identity Through Music & Intergenerational Storytelling
Last month in celebration of AAPI Heritage month, we explored the seminal 1973 album ‘A Grain of Sand’, an album often considered as the first musical voice of the Asian American movement of the late 60s and early 70s. We spoke with an original member of the album Nobuko Miyamoto, filmmaker Tadashi Nakamura, composer Faye Chiao and playwright/producer Melisa Tien, exploring diverse perspectives on the role that arts, culture and intergenerational lessons have for activating social change. We are proud to have partnered with The Global Leaders Program, featuring 2021 cohort member Rose Kim as our event facilitator.
We have recorded the event which you can find below, along with a list of resources for more information on our guest artists!
2020 Annual Report
2020 was a difficult year for all of us, and we are fortunate to have continued TCP initiatives through virtual programming. For this reason, we are proud to share our 2020 annual report with you. We hope that you find inspiration in the ways TCP has continued its work through a period of adaptation and perseverance.
Thank you to you all for being a part of The Canales Project community. In July, we will dedicate our time to research and study in order to guide our programming in ways that reflect connections through culture. We can’t wait to see you in August!
Warmest regards,
The Canales Project