September Newsletter - Welcome to the New Season!

Dear friends,

We hope that you had a wonderful summer and we are so excited to have you join us for our new season!

NEA Announcement

We are honored to have received a Grant for Arts Project award from the National Endowment for the Arts 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 orchestras, bands and choirs. This project is among the more than 1,100 projects across America totaling nearly $27 million that were selected during this round of Grants of Arts Projects fiscal year 2021 funding.

This project 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.

Meet our composers and their honorees! Faye Chiao (honoring Madam Zhou Xiaoguang) , Don Jones (honoring Rebecca of Mercy Beyond Borders), Morley (honoring Dasha Kelly Hamilton) and Madeline Myers (honoring Dr. Nancy O’Relly)

We are can’t wait to share further details as our composers and El Sistema USA affiliate organizations begin their collaboration!

Upcoming Events- Resonance: The Future and Past of Art, Science and Diplomacy Intersections

You’re invited! We are looking forward to participating in this webinar in collaboration with the OIST Foundation and The Ambassador’s Project. We will engage in a dialogue examining how leaders from the disciplines of art, science and diplomacy can work together to achieve common goals.

Collaborating Organizations:
The Ambassador’s Council
A Japan-based NGO aimed at promoting peace, sustainability, and SDGs through diplomacy and diplomatic networks.

The OIST Foundation (https://oistfoundation.org/)
The mission of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Foundation, Inc. is to promote innovative global scientific breakthroughs through enhancing and strengthening science and technology research and related programs at OIST and to empower Americans to support the sustainable development of Okinawa and deepen U.S.-Japan relations through OIST.

Register here

The Future of Cultural Diplomacy

The Future of Cultural Diplomacy is our newest initiative seeking to explore how to harness culture to advance foreign policy objectives. Our series aims to address the important but often overlooked power that the cultural arts can have in current foreign policy debates. Conceptualized by TCP founder and director, Carla Canales, The Future of Cultural Diplomacy convenes a diverse cohort of professionals discussing the potential of cultural diplomacy including scholars, government workers, artists, musicians, diplomats, and much more.

As we develop our programming in the next few months, we would love to learn more about your interests with cultural diplomacy. We invite you to take this brief 2 minute survey in order for us to get a sense of what you and the TCP community would like to learn and discuss in our future programming!

cultural diplomacy survey

Our past events have included discussions with Goodman Professor of the Practice of Cultural Diplomacy and International Relations at Harvard Kennedy School, Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Director of Cultural Programs, Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and U.S. Department of State, Nancy Szalwinski, former U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor, Emeritus, former Dean of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Dr. Joseph Nye, and finally UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay. We enclose recordings to our past events below!

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month!

September 15th marked the first day of Hispanic Heritage Month! Lasting until October 15th, National Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America. This observance began by President Lyndon Johnson in 1968 and National Hispanic Heritage Week and later expanded into a month by President Ronald Reagan in 1988. As we continue our programming to highlight the common bonds that link diverse cultures together, we are always thrilled to celebrate national monthly observances through music and art. We look forward to highlight some of our own Hispanic TCP artists and community members! To kick off Hispanic Heritage Month, we invite you to join us on as we revisit a conversation with Puerto Rican-born composer and multi-instrumentalist Angélica Negrón!

A Conversation with Angélica Negrón

Thank you for being a part of the TCP community, and we hope you will join us in our upcoming events and initiative developments!

Warmest regards,

The Canales Project

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