'together' Artist Profile: Russell Pinkston - Composer
We are thrilled to be collaborating with some incredible artists for our January 24-26 season centerpiece together. Composer Russell Pinkston has created to beautiful and moving new works for these shows: AloneTogether and Nobody Tells You. We asked Russell to tell us a bit about the process and a bit about himself.
Austin Classical Guitar: What has this project meant to you so far, has anything surprised you?
Russell Pinkston: It’s truly an honor to be part of this project. I think what ACG has done the past two seasons is wonderful, both artistically and in terms of the underlying concepts. I am sure that “together” will be just as powerful and well-produced and I hope that my little pieces will contribute in some small way. I’m especially looking forward to working with these great musicians!
ACG: What do you wish everyone knew about the process of creating, collaborating on, and sharing new music and new art?
RP: I first got into writing music when I was playing in a “Prog Rock” band in New England, back in the late sixties and early seventies. We had a pretty big following and we played all over the northeast, mostly doing our own music. We lived in a rambling old farm house in Vermont, which had a separate outbuilding where we practiced and worked out our songs and arrangements. For a songwriter/arranger, there’s just nothing quite like the experience of coming up with a new idea, sharing it with your friends/fellow musicians the same day, working out the arrangement collaboratively, and then performing it together onstage – sometimes that very night. And best of all, to be playing your own music for people who know you, have come to hear you, and really appreciate what you’re doing – that’s an amazing experience! Since leaving rock ‘n roll and becoming a “Composer” with a capital “C,” I haven’t had that kind of musical fellowship very often, and I miss it. Writing music for other people to perform is a very different, much more solitary experience. But when I finally get to hear what I’ve written played, especially by such outstanding musicians as I have been privileged to work with over the years, it’s no less of a joyful and satisfying experience. Delayed gratification, if you will! One of the pieces I wrote for this event is called “Alone, Together,” and it’s about the joy of communal music-making, and how it can lift us up when we’re feeling isolated.
ACG: What’s it been like work with this team?
RP: Well, I’ve certainly enjoyed my conversations about the project with Joe and Travis, and I’m looking forward to working with the musicians in the near future. I hope they like what I’ve come up with for them!
ACG: Tell us a little about what else you have going on - how can people learn more about you?
RP: Since retiring from UT after 35 years of teaching there, I’ve been splitting my time between Harpswell, Maine, and Austin. One of my great joys has been starting to study classical guitar (with Joe Williams). I was a self-taught electric blues/rock guitarist back in the day, but I never really knew what I was doing. I’m loving the experience now – practicing a lot, unlearning bad habits and discovering the wonderful literature for this instrument. Playing classical guitar is right up there with sailing these days – at least, when I’m up in Maine! There’s more of my music, for anyone interested (including some of my rock ‘n roll) on my website. Thanks for listening!
If you would like to know more about the inspiration of 'together,' we invite you to read this article by Artistic Director, Joe Williams, and Education Director, Travis Marcum.
Postcards: Americas High School - El Paso, Texas
Postcards is an Austin Classical Guitar (ACG) and GuitarCurriculum.com series that explores the guitar programs around the nation and strives to bring the guitar teacher community together.
This week’s Postcards is written by Adrian Saenz, guitar director at Americas High School in Socorro ISD* in El Paso, Texas. He is currently in his 16th year of teaching at Americas HS and his 20th year in public education. In the larger guitar community of Texas, Saenz edited and revised the UIL Guitar Prescribed Music List from 2007 to 2016. Saenz also holds a bachelor’s degree in general music from UTEP, a master’s degree in music education from NMSU, and as a guitarist, he studied under Stefan Schyga, Aquiles Valdez, and John Siqueiros.
In this postcard, Adrian Saenz discusses the successes of his guitar program, but he also talks about some of the challenges his program faces due to district policies and changes.
Postcard from Americas High School in El Paso, Texas
By Adrián Sáenz
Hello from El Paso! In this postcard I’d like to share a bit about us, a challenge, and an inspiration.
About us: There are three major school districts in El Paso Region 22 (El Paso ISD, Ysleta ISD, Socorro ISD) and four smaller districts. Within these districts, there are approximately 25 high school guitar programs and a few middle school programs. Americas High School (AHS) is in Socorro ISD.
AHS has seen particular success at UIL Contest. We usually register one of the largest entries at regional UIL Solo and Ensemble Contest, and a lot of our students advance to Texas State Solo and Ensemble Contest (TSSEC). A high percentage of students even receive number 1 ratings at TSSEC.
On an individual student level, AHS Guitar has had 3 outstanding soloists at TSSEC (2012, 2015, and 2016). These outstanding soloist awards were accompanied with offers of full scholarships to continue their studies at various Texas universities, including UTSA and Sam Houston. Many of our guitar students have gone on to study at North Texas and UTEP. Perhaps our biggest accolade is Dario Barrera who received a full scholarship at the Manhattan School of Music in 2018 and is currently studying under Oren Fader.
A challenge: My enrollment has dropped over the last 3 years, so I am rebuilding. One reason is that students are now required to select an endorsement (Graduation Plan) in middle school leading into high school (you can read more about this plan here). Band, orchestra, and choir students in the middle school feeder programs mostly select this endorsement, and the other career paths only allow for 1 year of a fine arts class. Compounding this issue is the lack of middle school guitar programs, meaning students are not seriously studying guitar at the time they are making these important decisions.
Lastly, because Texas has just one fine arts requirement, there are many “one-and-done” students who just need to fulfill the single fine arts credit requirement. So I often have high numbers in the beginner classes with low enrollment in the upper classes.
To counteract this I am advocating for more middle school guitar programs. Currently, I am personally teaching 40 students at a local middle school split across two guitar classes. We also have a phenomenal Mariachi instructor who is teaching four beginner guitar classes in an effort to build up our guitar program. The students in these classes will be able to enter the intermediate guitar class at AHS their freshmen year.
An inspiration: I took a trip, along with the Socorro HS guitar director, to Austin in 2016. The purpose of the trip was to observe the Guitar Concert and Sight-Reading Contest in Austin ISD. We were impressed with the quality of high school and middle school guitar programs from Austin ISD and around the state of Texas that participated at the Austin ISD Guitar Concert and Sight-Reading Contest.
This inspired us to build our own Guitar Concert and Sight-Reading Contest. And In 2017, we were able to implement the Concert and Sight-Reading Evaluation at Socorro ISD. In 2019 all 6 high schools in the Socorro District registered a Varsity and Non-Varsity group for 12 total groups. This was made possible with the help and guidance of Austin Classical Guitar and Edward Grigassy and Susan Rozanc from the Texas Guitar Directors Association.
In conclusion: The Socorro ISD high school guitar programs believe in the importance of advocating for music instruction; to teach the correct methods, techniques, best practices, and music literacy to elevate the status of the guitar. In order to secure the guitar’s future, we must establish guitar programs that are aligned to the national and state music standards to provide guitar students with a high-quality level of instruction. Socorro ISD is committed to elevating the guitar programs through the development of music education, establishing the guitar concert and sight-reading evaluation, and developing performance skills necessary for acceptance to music universities.
Guitar Segment ends at 1:36
And finally, I am excited to work with Dr. Joseph V. Williams II, Artistic Director at Austin Classical Guitar, on their ‘together’ Youth Orchestra Tour in March. Their kids will work with our kids here in El Paso, and make something beautiful for our community.
And that’s it from El Paso for today! If you come to our city, I hope you’ll stop by and see us.
Adrián Sáenz, Guitar Director
Americas High School/Clarke Middle School
*ISD Stands for Independent School District
We’d love to hear about guitar in your part of the world next! Reach out to Jess Griggs anytime with your story and a photo or two.
Postcards: Cleveland Classical Guitar Society - Cleveland, Ohio
Postcards is an Austin Classical Guitar (ACG) and GuitarCurriculum.com series that explores the guitar programs around the nation and strives to bring the guitar teacher community together.
This week’s Postcards is written by Erik Mann, Executive Director of the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society.
In this postcard, Erik discusses the arts renaissance in Cleveland, OH and the work the Cleveland Classical Guitar Society is doing in the community.
Postcard from Cleveland by Erik Mann
An arts renaissance is happening in Cleveland. And the societal impact is incalculable.
Under the Arts Mastery initiative of the Cleveland Foundation, eight organizations are changing the city, one student at a time, in the areas of theater, written and spoken word, photography, curatorial arts, dance, voice, stringed instruments, and classical guitar. The Cleveland Classical Guitar Society is proud to be one of these members.
Out of the 71 largest cities in the U.S., the City of Cleveland has the second highest child poverty rate. This is felt on almost every level of a child’s life, presenting numerous barriers to an equitable life. One huge area of inequality is in the arts. Despite one of the greatest arts scenes in the country, few children in Cleveland have a chance to be engaged in meaningful arts learning, including learning an instrument. That is where CCGS has found the opportunity to change a lot of lives.
Since 2012, Cleveland Classical Guitar Society has been working with schools and neighborhood centers to build classical guitar classes where the need is the highest. In the last few years, the achievement of our students has been so exciting to watch, with a feature nationwide on CBS This Morning, two of our students getting into a fellowship at Cleveland Institute of Music, performances prestigious venues like Severance Hall (home of the Cleveland Orchestra) and Cleveland Museum of Art, acceptance in Interlochen and Brevard summer camps, and much more. Thanks to a recent grant from the Cleveland Foundation, which represents the largest grant in CCGS history, we now have over 550 students in grades 2-12 studying in our program.
Most exciting of all has been the impact on the kids. The Cleveland Foundation recently sponsored a video documenting our program. In it, students and administrators talk about how learning the guitar has increased kids’ confidence, social skills, grades, and attendance; and how our teachers’ mentorship has filled the gap when a parent is missing.
I am so excited for the future of the program. We are moving toward a 5-year goal of increasing the depth of the program while expanding to 1000 students. That means that we are always looking for more teachers with passion and excellence. If that describes you, view our job postings here. And keep using your talents to bring good to the world.
Erik Mann - Executive Director - Cleveland Classical Guitar Society
We’d love to hear about guitar in your part of the world next! Reach out to Jess Griggs anytime with your story and a photo or two.
Top Ten Moments of 2019!
The year is almost over, and that means it’s time for the ACG Top Ten! As always, we wracked our brains and then lobbied hard for our favorites, but because this list is brimming with so much beauty and gratitude, we’re all still smiling at the results.
We hope you love perusing these as much as we do. We hope our services make you proud. If you find something that inspires you, and it’s the right time to support our work, we hope you’ll consider making a year-end gift to help our Top Ten list a year from now sparkle even more!
And as always, if we forgot your favorite, by all means let us know. From all of us at ACG, Happy Holidays!
#10 National Guild for Community Arts Education
For more than fifty years the National Guild has been a leader in community arts education, bringing together educators and community servants from around the US and beyond, sharing ideas, and establishing best practices. So it was a big deal when they decided to have their 2019 conference at the JW Mariott Hotel in Austin, Texas this fall! It was an especially big deal for us for four reasons:
We gave a talk! Long-time board member, and current Nominating/Governance Chair Kendal Gladish, joined Director of Education Travis Marcum, and Executive Director Matt Hinsley to give a featured 90-minute presentation called Board and Staff Engagement: Service with a Purpose. It was a translation of our Five Elements education theory into a board, staff, and volunteer engagement strategic framework (you can learn more about the Five Elements here). Ask us about it – it’s actually really cool! And people seemed to like it.
We got a grant! Led by our operations Director Karen Gallant, along with Travis, ACG became one of twenty organizations nation-wide to be selected for a National Guild Catalyzing Creative Aging Grant. Look to out Top Ten of 2020 for something related to our roll out of new service for older adults!
Matt got an award! They give out “Milestone” awards for arts leaders who’ve made a difference for more than twenty years. Our Director of Development, James Fidlon, along with Travis, nominated Matt for the award and he was selected along with five others from around the nation. It was a nice moment.
Margaret Perry was honored. Margaret was a personal advisor to Matt, an ACG board member, an Austin arts icon, and a long-time member of the guild. She encouraged ACG for years to get involved with the guild. Her spirit was strong at this conference, and among many beautiful moments, the standout tribute was ACG board member, and Director of Armstrong Community Music School’s Liz Cass performing in her honor at the trustee’s reception.
#9 Heroes & Role Models
Great artists have great impact. Three artists in particular lifted us this year.
Berta Rojas inspired everyone with her soulful performance at our February gala. The evening’s student performers were from Crockett High School. The students met Berta after the show, but for the seniors in the group it was a special reunion, since they all remembered Berta’s visit to their school four years earlier. In fact, they told us they’d been fired up from the moment they learned they would be sharing the stage with her.
Xuefei Yang opened our season in October. She prepared a special program of music from China and Spain representing her two greatest cultural influences. It was divine. But that’s not all she did here! Xuefei also gave a special interview and performance with the Austin Chinese American Network, taught talented students at UT Austin, visited with season ticket holders at our Gusto season opening dinner, and performed a private concert at Karrie and Tim League’s home in support of ACG Music & Healing.
Raphaël Feuillâtre gave a wide-ranging virtuosic performance on our International Series in November. He was mind-blowing. But while he was here he also visited Bedicheck, Travis, McCallum, and LBJ schools. Perhaps his deepest impact was felt at the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center where the young people connected quickly and deeply to his warm presence and beautiful playing. We’d never witnessed anything quite so powerful in a guest artist visit to the facility.
#8 Tickets for Good
In early September 2017, we joined forces with our friends in the Miro Quartet, Conspirare, and Austin Chamber Music Center to raise disaster relief funds in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. Hope After Harvey, as the fundraiser concert was called, raised $37,500, two car-loads of donated goods, and 200 clean-up volunteer names, in four days.
When things settled down at the ACG office and we reflected on the experience of running an event and sending 100% of the proceeds away to charity, we realized that we wanted our efforts to continue to benefit area nonprofit organizations doing vital work in our community. ACG Tickets For Good was born.
Since then we’ve raised thousands of dollars allowing supporters of local nonprofits to designate partner organizations to be recipients of 100% of their ticket purchase to our major events. One fun story we heard was from David Conger, Director of the guitar program at Lamar Middle School. He used ACG Tickets For Good to raise money to buy a new bass guitar for their school program. When we sent Lamar their check for $1,582 we were delighted to get David’s reply that the bass guitar they were purchasing was going to cost $1,595 – just $13 away!
Perhaps our most memorable fundraiser in 2019 was at the home of Mai Barazi and Hachem Dadouch. The concert featured UK-based Syrian guitarist Ayman Jarjour, and raised more than $7,500 for a scholarship fund for Syrian refugees.
#7 Music & Healing
Travis Marcum, ACG Director of Education, has been leading the way in ACG’s Music & Healing initiative for the past five years. It all began with our Lullaby Project in partnership with Carnegie Hall. Since then Travis has developed programming and worked directly with individuals facing a range of challenges from incarceration, to hospitalization, to homelessness.
Here’s a bit of a story from Dell Children’s Hospital Travis shared in May:
In early April, I met with a teenage girl – I’ll call her Anna – who expressed interest in taking guitar lessons during the three months she was hospitalized for a major procedure. We met every few days to have a lesson, play guitar, and talk about life and music.
Within moments of our first meeting, I learned that Anna had lived in Spain, and was a huge fan of flamenco music. Soon after, I found out that ACG’s good friend and world-class flamenco guitarist, Grisha, would be in Houston for a concert in May. I had an idea.
You can read the whole story online here.
#6 Kids Being Awesome Together
Kids got together in awesomeness a lot this year. Like, literally thousands of them, thousands of times! But a few of those times standout as particularly noteworthy.
In The Schools: In November, ACG Executive Director Matt Hinsley and ACG Artistic Director Joseph Williams conducted Austin ISD All Region Middle and High School ensembles with students from all over town, and in April nearly 1,000 kids in over 40 ensembles participated in Austin ISD’s Concert and Sight Reading Contest. These events are a big deal any way you look at it, but for us they’re particular pride points because the overall level is high, and because ACG has literally created these events for the district from inception, to design, to execution over the course of the past decade. Now we help other districts make similar standard-setting celebratory events around Texas and beyond.
In The Studio: Long time ACG Youth Orchestra (ACGYO) member Lennox Kolics is interested in recording tech and asked to be a summer intern, ACGYO has awesome players, and the ACG curriculum used around the world (GuitarCurriculum.com) is hungry for model recordings of the vast number of pieces in its teaching library. So a match was made! Thanks to some willing ACGYO colleagues, and generous support form Shay Brown and Chez Boom Audio here in town, ten (that’s right, ten!) new recordings were made for the curriculum with ACGYO artists and Lennox at the board.
ACG Trio: Can’t believe it took this long for something like this to happen, but this summer three amazing ACG alumni got together to form the ACG Trio! The players are Justice Phillips (UT composition graduate, and current full-time ACG Operations Associate who we’ve known since Lively Middle School), Angelica Campbell (UT guitar major, junior, who we met at Crockett High School), and Alex Lew (UT guitar major, senior, who we first met at Lamar Middle School). They’ve been super busy performing all over town including two appearances at UT’s James Turrell Skyspace where they gave the premiere performances of the ACG-commissioned new work by Matthew Lyons called Skyspace, written for the occasion (Matthew is an alum too, who went on to San Francisco Conservatory, before a composition degree at UT!!).
ACGYO San Francisco: It was our first ACGYO tour, and it was awesome. Members and parents worked alongside ACG Artistic Director Joseph Williams to plan, raise money, and elevate their level of playing to “sublime,” before heading out to San Francisco where they joined other amazing young people at San Francisco Conservatory of Music, performed to open an Omi Foundation Dynamite Guitars series event, and then played at the Alamo Drafthouse San Francisco to open a sold-out screening of Back To The Future. Why? Because when kids play guitar, the future gets better!
#5 A Whole New GuitarCurriculum.com
It may seem like a website redesign doesn’t belong in fifth place in a Top Ten list but trust us, this place is hard-earned!
First, it’s important to know that GuitarCurriculum.com is at the center of all our education program building. The shortest version of the story? We started in school-based guitar education in 1 school with 15 students in 2001. By 2004 we were in 2 schools with 100 students, and while we’d had good times, and 6 kids that had gone to college with music scholarships, we’d also come to realize that the world lacked the resources we needed to build the guitar programs of our dreams. So we worked like crazy from 2004 to 2008, invested about $250,000 in the early development, launched GuitarCurriculum.com in October 2008, and now it’s used in our 60 central Texas programs, across the state, in forty other US states, and in about 20 countries. Whew!
Second, about the redesign. Let’s just say it’s a process we started in 2012, it includes work in multiple countries, multiple languages, many web developers, firms, and consultants, several notable power outages, one car accident, one particularly disruptive invasion, a reunion across the world, and loads of good, old-fashioned elbow grease.
What’s new? Lots of things you can’t see, but make updating, data management, and functionality all superior in the backend. Then there’s the new logo, the appearance, and tons of awesome new content from video, to news, forum, and plenty of marvelous music. Now we’re cookin’, and wildly excited about the future of ACG Education now that we’ve got a shiny new machine in the garage!
#4 Javier Niño Scholarship
In February 2019 the world lost a marvelous young man long before his time. An impaired driver took Javier Niño’s life on the way home from the gym partway through his first year at St. Edward’s University.
Javi was a beautiful human being, warm, talented, and generous. We first met him as a high school freshman at Eastside Memorial High School. He fell in love with guitar, worked with ACG’s Jeremy Osborne to win a scholarship to attend McCallum High School. There he worked with McCallum’s Andrew Clark and would proceed to take lessons with ACG’s Performance Engagement Artist Joseph Palmer. Javi distinguished himself as a soloist and in ensemble. His many performances and competitions with his McCallum Quartet were particularly notable. As part of a college essay, Javi wrote this about Joseph Palmer:
After seeing Joseph play, I was inspired to pick up the guitar. I decided to give it my all and be just as cool as him. I even started taking guitar classes in high school. I ended up coming in contact with Joseph later, and he took me under his wing as one of his students.
Becoming his student taught me how to be disciplined. It was hard, but I had so much enthusiasm to become a better guitarist that over time I was able to develop discipline. I also applied the strict discipline of practicing guitar to my schoolwork.
I always strived to be as good as him. I admired how amazing Joseph played and how easy he made it seem. It helped me understand what determination is and how to pursue it. Have you ever wanted something so badly that you are willing to set everything aside just to accomplish that goal? That’s exactly how much I wanted to become a great player, and I established my determination to do so.
It was later in the spring that Diane Skeel, the mother of one of Javi’s McCallum Quartet partners Aaron Baldauf, approached us about beginning a scholarship fund in Javi’s honor. Through Diane’s hard work and the generosity of many including the Skeel/Baldauf family, the scholarship was begun. We awarded the first scholarship in October to Elijah Flores, a terrific guitarist from Crockett High School. You can read more about Elijah online here, and learn more about the Javier Niño Scholarship Fund online here.
#3 St. Louis & Cleveland
As ACG Education has grown many service-minded educators and organization leaders around the US and beyond have approached us to collaborate for training, strategy, or just plain-old advice. Two places our team has spent the most time in person, on the phone, and online, have been St. Louis and Cleveland. We have enthusiastically invested a lot of resources in both areas because the leaders have reflected back such tremendous energy, and such willingness to do the hard work of growth and community development, while at the same time always putting the needs of their communities first.
Cleveland Classical Guitar under the direction of Erik Mann has been so incredibly beautiful to watch. They have produced innovative programming, been in the local and national news a bunch (like this beautiful CBS Sunday Morning Broadcast), and this year won a $150,000 grant from the Cleveland Foundation to grow their programming to reach 500 students each week.
St. Louis Classical Guitar, run for many years by Bill Ash, and now led by super-talented Executive Director Kevin Ginty, has built more than twenty beautiful school programs. Out team has been in St. Louis training teachers every summer for seven years. The reach of their services has been a beautiful thing to watch first-hand. So you can imagine how happy we were when Bill Ash was recognized this year by the Missouri Arts Council as Arts Education Hero of The Year!
You have to imagine with us for a moment a time ten years ago when we had no sister organizations building education programs of this caliber anywhere in the country. Or twenty years ago when school-based guitar education was rarely found anywhere at all, few resources or standards existed, and our ideas were met with skepticism. Fast-forward to today when so many thousands of kids are finding joy and identity in school through participation in guitar, and partner organizations are winning major grants and awards, it’s like jet fuel for the ACG engine!
#2 ACG Global Services
Who would have thought that a nonprofit music service organization in Austin, Texas, could help inspire kids in Mexico, could help put guitars in the hands of students in Cambodia, could train teachers in Nicaragua, or help build and fund a music education program in an orphanage in Kathmandu, Nepal? Who would have thought that the same organization could develop a Braille and audio guide lifelong learning resource that people as far away as Montenegro would want to raise funds to translate and bring to serve blind and visually impaired students in the Balkan Peninsula?
Not us! Yet here we are.
We’ve been overjoyed this year by our many wonderful connections across the globe. Some of our partnerships are well-established, like our work with Ravindra Paudyal at the Early Childhood Development Center in Kathmandu, Nepal. Ravindra regularly sends us videos of kids playing beautifully and confidently, and has plans to grow the program in Nepal soon.
Other initiatives are bubbling rapidly, like Rados Malidzan’s plan to bring our LetsPlayGuitar.org Braille lifelong learning resource to Montenegro. Among other things, Rados was on national TV shows raising money for the effort, which begins in January (seen to the left).
And still more programs, like our new partnership with the Caring For Cambodia network of schools, are just getting started. With our friends at Calido Guitars we’re just now sending twenty new guitars to Cambodia, and will begin teacher training soon.
A bonus item we’d like to mention here is the new KLRU PBS television special that came out the day after Thanksgiving on our April 2019 production of FlamencoIndia with Oliver Rajamani and Jeronimo Maya. We’re putting this here because it’s awesome. And also because we believe strongly in our role as an agent of positive international cultural exchange through arts, but that exchange can happen right here in Austin too, and there’s no better example than Rajamani’s FlamencoIndia. [Watch it here]
#1 ACG Juvenile Justice Services
We are coming up on ten years of ACG Education for incarcerated youth in Travis County. We made a commitment in 2010, and we’ve been teaching kids in the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center virtually every school day ever since. It’s hard to encapsulate what this program means to us, and what we believe it means for the kids we serve. The best we can do, perhaps, is to invite you to come see them perform. The experience is life-changing.
But just loving a program is not enough to land it in first place on the ACG Top Ten list! We placed this program here for a few other reasons. First, 2019 saw the development of a second ACG Education program for incarcerated youth, this one in Williamson County. Instruction began there on June 3rd, and there have already been three beautiful public performances, and some amazing stories of courage and transformation.
Additionally, in September the Austin American Statesman published the most extensive article ever about Austin Classical Guitar (over 3,000 words!). Michael Barnes’ beautiful piece began with a story about a paper guitar made for ACG’s Jeremy Osborne by a grateful student in Gardner Betts, and the article online even includes a video feature about the new Williamson County program.
We are now in talks with yet another county judge about building a third program in 2020, so stay tuned! We truly believe that this program could bring indescribable benefits to court-involved youth across Texas and across our nation in the years to come.
Thank you for being together with us. For helping make the ACG family beautiful, vibrant, and loving. And we can't wait to see what the new year and decade has in store for us!
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year
From the Desk: Phil Swasey - ACG Partner Teacher
From the Desk is an Austin Classical Guitar (ACG) and GuitarCurriculum.com series that explores the organization through the eyes of the staff members. These articles focus on the staff’s thoughts and motivations, and hopefully provides a chance to get to know the people behind the scenes.
This week’s From the Desk is written by ACG Partner Teacher, Phil Swasey. Phil is currently a classroom Guitar Director at Bedichek Middle School in Austin I.S.D., he is the district content lead for middle school guitar and mariachi, and was named the campus Teacher of the Year in 2016. In the classroom, his focus remains on finding creative and empowering strategies to remove common obstacles in the way of student success.
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Impact in the First Years of Teaching by Phil Swasey
As most teachers can attest to, the first years in the classroom can be an emotional, physical and mentally trying time for young professionals. Working with directors that are experiencing these fresh and raw feelings for the first time has encouraged me to look back at my own experiences during the early stages of my career.
Almost ten years ago, after deciding on a career change and a cross-country move to Austin, I finished my alternative certification with Region XIII and jumped right into the classroom. I was excited to be on my feet, not chained to a desk, and grateful to have a guitar in my hands, collecting an adult paycheck.
Despite my eagerness, my classroom was not the magical learning environment that I had envisioned. It was a chaotic swirl of indecisiveness, unwanted student behaviors, emotional swings and a general doubt about my effectiveness as a teacher. When I looked at my first group of 6th grade beginning guitarists, motivated, wide-eyed and full of potential, I thought that they deserved someone more experienced to guide them through the start of their musical careers.
During my moments of doubt, ACG and Jeremy Osbourne were there to support me and focus my energy on solutions to the problems that I was facing. I’m convinced that this outreach helped me to obtain a level of confidence in my practice, allowing me to serve my students more effectively early on.
The truth likely is, my classroom was never as chaotic as I perceived it to be. Maintaining perspective on your own teaching practice and environment is a constant challenge. Teachers are impactful from their first moments on campus, and having mentors around to encourage growth and recognize strength is an invaluable part of learning the teaching craft.
The 6th graders that I looked at with doubt and hesitancy graduated from high school last year, many having continued on with guitar through their senior year at Crockett High School. Watching them mature as musicians and people over the last 7 years was a continual source of reward and gratification.
Last year, I was talking with Rey, one of the students from that chaotic and mis-managed beginning guitar class. He was preparing his college applications for guitar performance, and in a moment I will never forget, he said, “I wouldn’t be doing this without you.” Rey is now on scholarship at the University of Texas and I couldn’t be more proud of him. This serves as a reminder for me that teachers are impactful every day of their careers, even the first one.
Postcards: Loudoun County, Virginia
Postcards is an Austin Classical Guitar (ACG) and GuitarCurriculum.com series that explores the guitar programs around the nation and strives to bring the guitar teacher community together.
This week’s Postcards is written by Dr. Kevin Vigil, Guitar & Music Theory Director at Heritage High School, Chair of the Virginia Music Educators Association Guitar Council & All-Virginia Guitar Ensemble, and Member-At-Large of the NAfME Council for Guitar Education.
This week, Dr. Vigil focuses on a student in his county, Jack Osborne, excelling in the guitar world!
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Postcard from Loudoun County, VA - By Dr. Kevin Vigil
Meet Jack!
Jack Osborne is a senior at Briar Woods High School (BWHS) in Loudoun County Public Schools. He served as concertmaster for the 2019 NAfME All-National Honors Guitar Ensemble that took place from November 7 – 10. Not only was Jack selected for this honor, but also acted as concertmaster for the 2018 All-Virginia Guitar Ensemble (AVGE) and (again) for the 2019 AVGE; which performed on November 21. Oh yeah… he also won the Beatty Scholarship Competition in Washington, DC! Among the prizes was the opportunity to open up for classical guitar legend, David Russell.
So how did Jack get to this point?
One word - opportunity.
Jack has had the opportunity to learn guitar at BWHS under the direction of Dr. Michael Murphy, from his private instructor, Jamey Mann, and the PAVAN Regional Governor’s School to list a few. Jack has also, and perhaps more importantly, had opportunities to stumble along the way. He told me about a poor outcome from a competition; which damaged his spirit and passion to continue with guitar. However, a friend and fellow competitor, Ryan Robinson, gave him some sound advice, “performing is not about winning or losing, but about reaching your audience.”
Jack has certainly taken his friend’s advice and continues to strive to reach others with his musical performances. He is also planning definitely to continue his studies of the instrument in college as a performance major and potentially double major with computer science.
We’d love to hear about guitar in your part of the world next! Reach out to Jess Griggs anytime with your story and a photo or two.
Live at the Library: “Evening” with Thomas Echols & Invoke
Dr. Thomas Echols - performer, composer, songwriter, instructor at Austin Community College – is one of the most creative artistic innovators we know. At home in many styles and multiple media, Echols was the mastermind behind ACG’s Summer Series NARRATIVES that rolled together poetry from Argentina, Portugal, and England, minimalism, ancient and modern instruments, synthesizers, and contemporary responsive composition.
On Sunday, December 1st at 2pm (doors at 1:30), Echols will be joined by award-winning and supremely imaginative Invoke String Quartet for the first of two ACG Live at the Library shows. The event will be held at Austin’s new Central Public Library, it’s free, and open to the public.
We asked Echols to share a few thoughts on the show, which he’s calling, EVENING:
ACG: Tell us about EVENING?
TE: Evening” presents a sonic landscape that is inhabited by songs, compositions, and improvisations. The focal points of the performance are four songs, somewhat sparse and inward looking, that unfold out into instrumental forays. At times, the players are guided by GRADUS, a contrapuntal algorithm that I built to be an additional participant in the work. GRADUS performs a complex role: providing pitch content to be played by us, processing the sounds captured from our instruments, and performing newly generated material through various types of synthesis. The emotive content of the songs is rather soft, dark, and heavy. GRADUS provides a kind of levity, by revealing that a lot of these same sonic experiences can come from a source essentially devoid of emotion (a computer). To help GRADUS to follow our expressive intent, I have made a device that mounts to my guitar that sends the algorithm information about the physical movement of my guitar and monitors the motion of my left hand, as I engage in a kind of hyperbolic expressive histrionics to communicate musical intention.
ACG: What do you love about working with Invoke String Quartet?
TE: Invoke, is amazing! They are a top-shelf string quartet that has chosen to ardently pursue a path of deep creative work: improvising, composing, song-writing, and working with new composers. With Invoke, I can provide a skeletal layout of what we are working on, and we can improvise around it until we come to something we love. I can also give them a detailed score and they can read it easily. They are a dream.
ACG: What do you wish everyone knew about working with synthesizers/electronic music?
TE: It’s more than people often think it is. Synthesizers are an amazing way to learn about traditional instruments: by creating a “patch” that resembles the sound of a clarinet or snare drum, you learn quite a lot! So, it is a means of learning to orchestrate. But just as importantly, computers, synths, circuits et al are a way of exploring new sounds and textures, new ways for musicians to engage with themselves, other musicians, and their audiences through various interactive techniques.
ACG: Why is creativity important to you, to humanity?
TE: When thinking of creativity, I really come to focus on two things: the idea of free will and of learning as its expression. A hot take on free will through a Tolstoyan lense is that we have it, but we have a whole lot less than we like to think. We are bound by a multitude of constraints that determine so much about our live, but in spite of that, we do guide the ship in some way.
About learning.... Creativity, for me, is the natural end result of learning, with learning and creating being somewhat like inhaling and exhaling. The creative act is the trace left by the fire that was the learning.
The creative part seems to come about through an important need: the need to connect with others, while continuously learning about the next thing that we will eventually create serves as a kind of path towards greater freedom. So, going back to the free will thing, a creative life allow a person to have greater agency, providing us with the most obvious mean of having a say in what we become. That's the long and short of it, so I tend to focus on learning and then find myself creating as a kind of happy accident, at least in the initial inception of the thing!
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Thank you Dr. Tom! We can’t wait. Learn more about Thomas Echols on his website or by checking out his band here.
Interview: Matthew Lyons - Composer, Performer, Arranger
Matthew Lyons is an Austin based composer, performer, and arranger. Lyons was recently commission by the ACG Trio for their November 24th performance at Skyspace. In this interview, he discusses his compositions, and specific challenges and inspirations for the Skyspace piece.
Earliest experiences in music?
My earliest musical memory is listening to Beatles albums on cassette in the car - I had the albums memorized by color as opposed to name, so I’d say “Green one!” (perhaps that was Rubber Soul, for example).
I began studying guitar in 3rd grade. I took classical lessons, but wanted to be in a rock band. A pivotal moment was playing a song I wrote in the 5th grade talent show about my two Dachshunds, with my friend Chris playing rhythm guitar. When I ended the song by laying on the whammy bar (attached to the bridge of the guitar, moves the pitch up and down) all the other kids present thought that was just the coolest.
What led you into composition?
I’ve always written music, since I began taking guitar lessons. As my playing evolved, so did my compositional language. I chose to study classical guitar for my undergrad, but my teacher encouraged me to lean into composing more. After I developed a hand injury that made further classical guitar studies no longer an option, I decided to start studying composition at UT Austin, and quickly realized that I was on the right path.
Can you talk about some of the themes you explore in your music? Both as a composer and performer?
Each of my pieces tends to take on a different narrative - the only themes I can think of in my music are more abstract, such as a focus on colorful, jazz-inspired harmony, and themes and textures that both engage the audience while sometimes challenging them. It’s important to me that whatever might be interesting or engaging about my music is apparent on the surface. As a guitarist-composer, anything I write for guitar always has the intention of stretching the existing repertoire in some way. One thing I’ve experimented with recently is guitar and live electronics with a computer processing sound in real time.
What are some influences in your work?
My favorite composers are J.S. Bach and Maurice Ravel, even though my music doesn’t sound at all like the former. Within the current climate of “classical music” (whatever that even means any more) I find myself gravitating towards composers and styles that are openly influenced by minimalism,”post-minimalism,” and/or popular styles. My favorite living musician is the jazz pianist Brad Mehldau - I listen to his music probably more than all other music combined. Something about it resonates with me - his integration of classical technique and form into original compositions and jazz versions of popular songs (including Radiohead and The Beatles). The Beatles have always been my favorite band, and the charm of their music and personalities is something I can only try to emulate.
What are you hoping to accomplish with this composition in Skyspace?
Just as the gazers’ focus in the installation shifts between the sky and the changing colors of the installation, I want the music to be on the threshold of attention, sometimes engaging the audience more and other times falling into the background of the overall experience.
How does the unusual venue inspire or shape your composition?
As I mentioned before, exploring colorful harmonies and the expressive relationship they create is one of my main compositional impulses. When I went to check out the space, experiencing the slowly shifting colors seemed to me like a great analog for slowly changing harmonic progressions. As someone who has music synesthesia, I associate certain colors with certain harmonies - not so much poetically as literally. The shifting colors of the sky - from brighter, to red, to dark blue - influenced the harmonic structure of the piece.
What challenges does it present?
Some practical issues include the fact that the piece is about a third the amount of time that the audience will be in the installation (although people can technically come and go as they please), and so when and how exactly to start and end will be unconventional for both audience and performers.
More information about SkySpace can be found on UT-Austin's website.
ACG Global Services: Ravindra Paudyal - Kathmandu, Nepal
There’s no better way to describe Ravindra Paudyal than an absolute miracle worker. Internationally trained and accomplished, Ravindra began teaching at the Early Childhood Development Center in Nepal earlier this year and has already made a world of difference in the lives of his students.
In Nepal, resources are limited for children, especially those of incarcerated parents. According to UNICEF’s 2010 Nepal Child Poverty Report, over a third of Nepal’s 12.6 million children live below the national poverty line, and two in every five of them are severely deprived of at least two basic human needs. With life on the street as their only alternative, many Nepali children are forced to accompany their mothers to jail, since caretakers in the area are few and far between. Nepalese law permits children to stay in jail with their incarcerated mothers only until they reach the age of five, at which point relatives usually assume custody. Unfortunately, in many cases there are no relatives available to take care of these children, ultimately leaving them helpless and homeless.
That’s where ECDC comes in. Their mission aims to ensure incarcerated mothers have more control over their children’s fate, working tirelessly to supply each and every child with the resources necessary to shape their ideal future. With the help of Ravindra and the rest of their team, ECDC offers these children something they could never get in prison: the chance to be a kid. Through the power of music, children who were once in a seemingly impossible position are given a fresh start, finally able to enjoy their childhood.
Ravindra leads classical guitar classes every week, using ACG’s resource GuitarCurriculum.com to teach his students how to play and perform. For them, music is more than entertainment, it’s a rare privilege that becomes a source of great pride when they learn how to create it themselves.
“They want to show their ability and enjoy themselves in the field of music, and as a result, they find their dreams here,” Ravindra explains.
Much like the children he teaches, Ravindra’s own upbringing largely shaped his future in music. “My older brother was a very good musician, until all of a sudden he became very ill and his kidney stopped working. At the hospital, he held my hand and told me, ‘you must learn music, because I don’t think I’ll get the chance.’ It was very hard for me to hear those words. Then one day he passed away. Our house, once full of musical sound and melody, suddenly turned into grave silence. These circumstances are what inspired me to learn music.”
Slowly but surely, Ravindra began practicing guitar by himself. “I couldn’t help but feel like the soul of my brother was imbedded in me. I felt like his dream was leading me,” he recalls. “Since then, I’ve realized just how much my instrument means to me. My guitar became a friend that led me to celebrate in joy, counseled me and supported me during my sorrows.”
Teaching guitar allows Ravindra to do the same for his students. “My greatest wish is to produce brilliant classical musicians through ECDC, so that they can make a living on their own after they leave the program. Beyond that, I hope to produce future teachers through ECDC so that they can teach the next generation of musicians.”
He insists that ACG has made it all possible. “Working with ACG is truly gratifying because of their heartfelt intentions and their prolific direction of creating skillful musicians by providing quality education purely based on non-profit social work. They provide countless opportunities to a lot of skilled classical musicians, which drives me to be truthful and dedicated in my work. Because of this, I’ve been fortunate enough to enhance the lives of so many children.”
Postcards: Jennings Junior High - Jennings, Missouri
Postcards is an Austin Classical Guitar (ACG) and GuitarCurriculum.com series that explores the guitar programs around the nation and strives to bring the guitar teacher community together.
This week’s Postcards is written by James McKay, Music Educator at Jennings Junior High in Jennings Missouri. McKay discusses the expressive and therapeutic benefits of playing guitar in this Postcard.
Jennings Jr. High Postcard
James McKay
Here in a little town called Jennings Missouri, some really incredible things are happening. Tightly tucked away between St. Louis (Top 10 most dangerous U.S. cities) and Ferguson (known for the national attention it got from the Mike Brown incident), music has been used to impact the lives of youth who once have and continue to experience trauma.
For a region of this size, the Jennings School District is fairly small. It's comprised of three elementary, one junior, and one high school. In 2014, I piloted a string program that has now blossomed to cover all five buildings. All students started on violin and later, when given a chance, moved on to viola, cello, or double bass. I began to notice that some of the students weren't taking music classes purely for the love of music. Some attended because of what the course did for them - relaxation. On several occasions, when asked about the class, students repeated responded,
"Playing music relaxes me, I feel calm."
Fast forward to 2017, my life was impacted by a visit to the workshop hosted by the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society. A wonderful gentlemen from Austin Classical Guitar introduced me to GuitarCurriculum.com, and immediately, I was SOLD ON the idea of a non-guitarist having the ability to teach classical guitar effectively. Three years later, we have 27 middle schoolers playing guitar and playing several performances throughout the school year. Thanks to the ongoing support from the St. Louis Classical Guitar Society, I can grow my program to scale.
The blessing in disguise here is, some of the students who signed up for the violin ended up falling in love with classical guitar. Our students now have expanded choices for music that helps them to not only express themselves but also enjoy the therapeutic benefits of playing music.
We’d love to hear about guitar in your part of the world next! Reach out to Jess Griggs anytime with your story and a photo or two.