Fellows explore ways to make connections through music on and off the stage. Community projects and residencies give the fellows the opportunity to interact with people of varying age groups, musical experience, and perspectives.
In their second year, fellows will interact with underserved communities in homeless shelters, hospitals, correctional facilities, and elder-care facilities through music. Professional development will support them in crafting appropriate and engaging musical experiences for those audiences.
Among the proposals produced in recent years were a collaboration with residents of a Bronx family apartment complex, a pen-pal program that paired young students with professional musicians, and a performance of George Crumb’s Voice of the Whale in the American Museum of Natural History’s Milstein Hall of Ocean Life.
In addition to working in the neighborhoods of New York City, each year of The Academy fellows spend five days in the fall and five days in the spring in residence at Skidmore College, where they reach out to the students and the greater Saratoga Springs community through activities such as these:
Using Skidmore College as a model, The Academy and its alumni have expanded outreach to international audiences. Alumni, who now number 45 and will total 65 by next year, performed during the 2009–2010 season at Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern to sold-out audiences, as well as at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, where they were warmly received. Both venues have invited Academy fellows back to perform during the 2010–2011 season.
This season, alumni will travel to Aviles, Spain for a residency in partnership with the new Niemeyer Center, and future residencies are being planned for India and Mexico. Alumni will also be featured in a Carnegie Hall Family Concert on January 16, 2011 and in a free Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concert on March 2, 2011 at the Pregones Theater in the Bronx.