Community Centered Art Making
Our mission at ACG is to inspire individuals in the communities we serve through musical experiences of deep personal significance. Community Centered Art-Making is a vibrant expression of this mission. Led by ACG’s Education and Artistic teams with the help of local and international artists and partners, this effort is always about designing opportunities for members of our community to be creative and to express their experience.
Every project is different, developed over months, sometimes years, of collaboration. This list is a growing library of these projects: what they were inspired by, who they involved and some of the powerful art that was created.
If you’d like to know more, please reach out to ACG’s Artistic Director, Joe Williams, at [email protected]
Give (2024)
Our 34th Season was guided by the theme of GIVE: a celebration of the gifts that each of us can choose to share and an invitation to notice how these gifts transform over the course of our lives.
This project brought together the legendary Pepe Romero, ACG’s Artist-in-Residence, with nine young guitarists from Austin to perform in three quartets where Pepe joined as the fourth member performing music written and performed by the Romero family. With Pepe’s wise leadership, the project was a renewal of the monumental repertoire of Los Romeros invigorated by a new generation.
The three quartets were coached by teaching artists Joseph Palmer, Stephen Krishnan & Alex Lew with support from the ACG team over 10 months and joined Pepe for two residencies and the 4 performances as part of our season finale.
Process/timeline: August 2024-May 2025
Communities involved: 9 young artists and their families
Musicians: Pepe Romero with The Palmer Trio: Paul Devens, Noah Melendrez & Kian Mitchell, The Orpheus Trio: Satvik Chawla, Allen Liu & Brandon Kim, and The Baker 3: Jianna Zamora, Teddy McCoy & Greg Sonnier.
Project leaders: Pepe Romero, Travis Marcum & Joe Williams
Sponsored by atsec information securities 
Presence (2024)
Defined as the intersection of sensation, attention and time, Presence is an invitation to be in the moment.
With the help of ACG’s 2023-24 Artist-in-Residence and Grammy-nominated composer Reena Esmail, we created a year-long dialogue and collaboration with our community that resulted in a spectacular concert. More than any other, this project blurred the roles of each participant where all were invited to compose, perform, reflect and create lyrics. The concert featured five newly commissioned works by Reena Esmail, Matthew Lyons, Travis Marcum, Tony Mariano and Joe Williams with lyrics created by the performing ensemble.
Process/timeline: January 2022 – February 2023
Communities involved: Intergenerational guitar ensemble ages 10-75, students at Gardner Bets Juvenile Justice Center, and the Austin community.
Musicians: VAMP (singers), Dieter Hennings Yeomans (guitar), Kristin Wolfe Jensen (bassoon), Joe Williams (conductor), ACG Youth Camerata, ACG Youth Orchestra, ACG Chamber Ensemble and a Collegiate ensembles (UT Austin, UT San Antonio & UT Rio Grande Valley) with Hector Aguilar, Reena Esmail, John Henry Johnson, Stephen Krishnan, Matthew Lyons, Steve Kostelnik, Francisco de la Rosa, & Phil Swasey
Project leaders: Reena Esmail, Travis Marcum & Joe Williams
Sponsored by atsec information securities
HOME (2023)
Home is a celebration of the natural world and our part in it.
This multimedia concert project featuring The Elements, a triple concerto written by 2022-23 ACG Artist-in-Residence Marek Pasieczny, devoted to the people and places that make up home for each of us. This intergenerational ensemble features guitarists from age 12 to 76, internationally acclaimed soloists and projections by photographer Barry Stone.
Process/timeline: June 2022- February 2023
Communities involved: Intergenerational guitar ensemble ages 12-75 and the Austin community.
Musicians: Marek Pasieczny (guitar), Bion Tsang (cello), Thomas Burritt (percussion), Joe Williams (conductor),
ACG Youth Orchestra, ACG Chamber Ensemble, young artists from Bedichek Middle School, Akins High School, UT Austin, UT San Antonio & UT Rio Grande Valley with Joshua Friedman, Steve Kostelnik, Phil Swasey and Mengya Tian.
Project leaders: Marek Pasieczny, Travis Marcum & Joe Williams
Sponsored by atsec information securities
Mosaic Variations (2022)
ACG 2021-22 Artist in Residence Clarice Assad joined us on an epic collaboration with Austin young artists featuring 2 residencies and the co-composition of a new work in two versions.
The process began with Clarice sharing an original theme with 50 young artists in Austin. The young artists composed and recorded responses to her theme and then Clarice created a set of variations from their work which she aptly named Mosaic Variations. She joined the guitar ensemble on electronics to premiere the piece in its first version. Then Clarice created a virtuosic version of the same work for international touring artists the Miro String Quartet and iconic guitarist Jorge Caballero.
The project resulted in two major performances and a documentary, Do What’s In Your Heart, by Northshore Media.
Process/timeline: July 2021 – May 2022
Communities involved: 50 young artists in Austin
Musicians: Miro String Quartet, Jorge Caballero (guitar), Clarice Assad (electronics), Joe Williams (conductor) with the ACG Youth Orchestra, Crockett and McCallum High School ensembles.
Project leaders: Clarice Assad, Travis Marcum & Joe Williams
Sponsored by atsec information securities
Ofrendas (2020)
In collaboration with Mexic-Arte Museum, Austin Classical Guitar invited our community to create ofrendas for loved ones who have passed.
In the tradition of Día de Los Muertos, altars are created to honor the memories of loved ones who have passed. The altars are decorated with ofrendas, personal objects to encourage their spirits to return and join the celebration.
Inspired by this idea, ACG commissioned 20 Austin-based artists to create video ofrendas, Travis Marcum created an ofrenda lesson plan for AISD teachers and students, and we offered a community-wide invitation to participate in this celebration.
The project manifested as a livestream with Mexi-Carte Museum, an installation of an ACG community altar at the Mexi-carte Museum and a youtube playlist of all 69 ofrendas.
Process/timeline: September – November 2020
Communities involved: The broader Austin Community
Partners: Mexic-Arte Museum, Refugee Services of Texas
Artists: Brent Baldwin, Mark Cruz, Mela Sarajane Dailey, Thomas Echols, Erica Flores, Matt Gilchrest, Elizabeth Herrera , Javier Jara, Yuliya Lanina with Joe Williams, Carla McElhaney, Alan Retamozo, Graham Reynolds, Nakia Reynoso, Michael Robles, Carrie Rodriguez, Cassie Shankman, Page Stephens, Carl Thiel, Mad Whitaker, Claudia Chappa & Arnold Yzaguirre. Guitar students from AISD Programs, Participants from Refugee Services of Texas, ACG members Matthew Hinsley, Travis Marcum, Ciyadh Wells, Justice Phillips, Angelica Campbell, Joe Williams, ACG Youth Camerata, Youth Orchestra, Choir and Chamber Ensemble members, and community members.
Project leaders: Salvador Garcia, Travis Marcum & Joe Williams
Together (2020)
Inspired by a year of interviews with individuals in our community, together is devoted to the themes of belonging and isolation and is the third installment of our Austin-focused projects following dream and i/we. Individuals were asked “How are you alone? How do you belong? What does the fabric of the space between us feel like? How can we better see each other?”
Audio recordings of their responses and the metaphor of the interconnectedness of a forest shaped this multimedia performance. together featured ACG commissioned works by Russell Pinkston, Celil Refik Kaya, and Joe Williams along with music of Clarice Assad and Wang Jie and video projections by Tobias Rodriguez.
Process/timeline: December 2019 – January 2020
Communities involved: Edward Kimball, Joyce Williams, Christina Bain, Shere Coito Paz, Courtney Rosenthal, and Patti Troth Black and the broader Austin community.
Partners: Dell Children’s Hospital & Livestrong Cancer Institutes
Musicians: Jennifer Choi (violin), Jessica Valls (bass), Alejandro Montiel & Isaac Bustos (guitar)
Project leaders: Travis Marcum & Joe Williams
dream (2018)
dream was the second installment in our series devoted to empathy. This multimedia concert project focused on 6 young people in our community. Through interviews with Travis Marcum, they shared their hopes and fears for the future. Their voices were the inspiration of a new work by Joe Williams. The concert was later reimagined as a feature film with Alonzo Lujan in 2019 from the original live performance and newly created footage.
Process/timeline: December 2017- August 2018
Communities involved: Austin ISD High School Students
Partners: American Gateways, CASA of Travis County, Seedling Mentor Program
Musicians: Jennifer Choi (violin), Louis-Marie Fardet (cello), Alejandro Montiel & Isaac Bustos (guitar), Chris Lizak (percussion), Ta’Tyana Jammer (vocals), Travis Marcum (electric guitar)
Project leaders: Matthew Hinsley, Travis Marcum & Joe Williams
i/we 2017 & i/we 2020
In 2017, ACG created i/we, a multimedia concert inspired by interviews Travis Marcum conducted with Syrians & Iraqis affected by the refugee crisis who were living in Austin. The project focused on the themes of home, empathy and our shared humanity in a time of polarization. The premiere involved an international cast of musicians and artists, won Austin Chronicle’s Best New Composition for Joe Williams’ piece by the same name, and changed us forever.
In I/We 2020, we partnered with techno/performance art troupe ARCOS with dancers Bonnie Cox, Ginnifer Joe, Kaitlyn Jones and Oddalys Salcido to recontextualize these stories in new spaces, reimagining the themes of home in a film featuring four new dance works.
Process/timeline: Dec 2016- July 2017
Communities involved: Austin’s Iraqi and Syrian community
Partners: Refugee Services of Texas, American Gateways
Musicians: Jennifer Choi (violin), Louis-Marie Fardet (cello), Alejandro Montiel & Isaac Bustos (guitars), Håkan Rosengren (clarinet), Craig Hella Johnson (voice & poetry)
Project leaders:
i/we 2017- Matthew Hinsley, Travis Marcum & Joe Williams
i/we 2020 – ARCOS Dance, Travis Marcum & Joe Williams