Category archives: Artist Pages

  • New York City based non profit Art for Progress has launched an online music resource for NYC students and anyone who's interested in learning how to produce music, play an instrument or vocal instruction. In response to the school closures and what seems like the inevitable end of the school year, Art for Progress is taking a progressive approach to providing instruction for our students in both our elective music classes, after school programs and our BREC campus wide after school music program. To address this challenge, we will be providing weekly educational videos that will align with what was being taught in the classrooms prior to the school closures- instrument instruction, vocal instruction and music production. New content will be posted along with a narrative for each video, and our teachers will be available to take questions, arrange chats and for follow up meetings.   We expect to launch the online program on Monday, March 23rd and as we come up with more creative ideas we will continue to add more to the program.  At this point, we will provide as many resources as possible to be sure that this is the best experience we can provide outside of the classroom. We’re excited to do this for our students and for anyone who wants to learn through this new resource.  For any inquiries, please contact admin@artforprogress.org. Please subscribe to the channel and follow us here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbEUTEdVVFNtY49A7D01-ZA
  • This summer, thanks to a grant from the Matisse Foundation, I had the great pleasure of teaching the music portion of the Art for Progress Summer Arts & Music Program for high school students and young adults interested in pursuing creative careers. Consisting of series of four workshops held on Sunday mornings during July and August at the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural and Educational Center, the program was designed to explore the many real-world considerations inherent to careers in the arts and music. The focus was to look at some of the dynamics at play in the music and art worlds, and to provide support in the development of specific skills in the various media. Each week, a professional working in the arts was invited as a guest speaker and to host a short discussion. The speakers were happy to answer questions and were very informative and animated as they enlightened the group about the day-to-day life of a working artist. Everyone seemed to have a great time and to get a better sense of how to approach their work professionally going forward. On a personal note…I had the fantastic opportunity to study visual art in Paris while in college, and later jazz theory and improvisation, so it was auspicious to me to be able to work with the foundation representing French painter Henri Matisse, a personal favorite and early influence. Matisse was known to love American jazz music, and that added to my special sense of personal investment in this project. We at AFP are[...]