The Choral Commons – Details, episodes & analysis

In January, The Choral Commons hosted a round table discussion on justice-centered choral advocacy, accountability, and strategic planning for the new year with  panelists: Catherine Dehoney, President & CEO, Chorus America; Maria Guinand, Vice President, IFCM; Mackie Spradley, President, NAfME; Elizabeth Swanson, Vice President, NCCO; and Andre Thomas, Vice-President, ACDA.

On this episode of Engender, Nicky and Brad interview composer Mari Esabel Valverde and speak about the honesty of gender diversity, the humanizing power of representation, and expansive notions of choral excellence. We loved this conversation. 

Mari Esabel Valverde is an award-winning composer and singer in steady demand across the United States and Canada. Based in North Texas, she sings in multiple professional ensembles and teaches singing and transgender voice training with TruVoice Lessons. She holds degrees from St. Olaf College, the European American Musical Alliance in Paris, France, and San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

In the finale of our second Gather series, Emilie and André interview Jonathan Pallant (from the Dallas Street Choir), Marilyn Irizarry and Leeav Sofer (from LA's Urban Voices Project.) 

OnRaé LaTeal is a musician, producer, activist, and educator based in Washington, DC. She has held a variety of roles at the Hirschhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Smithsonian’s contemporary art museum on the National Mall. She recently managed ARTLAB, the Hirschhorn’s digital art studio for teens, which offers racially inclusive and diverse educational experiences for youth. She is currently serving as Education Coordinator of the Smithsonian’s new community engagement initiative “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past.” She is also the founder of two DC-based grassroots programs rooted in the arts, technology, and racial and gender equity, the Black Girls Handgames Project and Freedom Futures Collective. 
 
In this conversation, OnRaé provokes us to consider what it means to be on the right side of history. She inspires us with her album, We Keep Us Safe, a 23-song visual album that she created with student artists and activists reimagining public safety. She challenges us to work harder for racial and educational equity in our communities. And with her work, she demonstrates the creative potential of music to energize and coalesce social movements to effect change nation wide. We hope you'll find inspiration in OnRaé LaTeal’s call for all of us to imagine the just and compassionate world of our wildest dreams. 

On Wednesday, Emilie and André spoke with Jonathan Palant and London Alexander about how the Dallas Street Choir is responding to poverty, housing insecurity, addiction recovery, trauma healing, and homelessness in Dallas, Texas.

On this episode, Nicky and Brad have a conversation with Abdullah Hall from the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles about the intersections of race and gender, as well as their experiences with singing and advocacy.  The Trans Chorus of Los Angeles is one of the first all Trans-Identified Chorus in America, consisting of Transgender, Non-Binary, Intersex, Gender-Non-Conforming and Gender-Fluid individuals.

Emilie and André speak with Leeav Sofer and Marilyn Irizarry about how the organization Urban Voices Project is responding to poverty, housing insecurity, addiction recovery, trauma healing, and homelessness in Los Angeles.

Aisha Shillingford is an artist, writer, and strategist originally from Trinidad & Tobago. She has been a spiritual and cultural organizer and network weaver for social movements. Aisha has earned a BA in Environmental Analysis and Policy, a Masters of Social Work with a focus on Community Organizing, and a Masters of Business Administration with a focus on Innovation, Creativity and Social Entrepreneurship. She is the artistic director of Intelligent Mischief, a creative studio and design lab unleashing Black imagination to shape the future. 

 In this conversation, Aisha offers us a provocation to dream expansively about the future of choral music and community, imploring us to extend our frames of reference to imagine impossible realities. Aisha reminds us that seeds of the impossible have been and continue to be sown in the imagination of those whose realities have been confined by systems and structures that divide, violate, erase, and oppress. She asks us to make space for the unknown in our dreaming of a just and compassionate world and offers a recipe for a collective choral futuring, built on the values of self determination, participatory design, and time intensive relationship building. 

You can learn more about Aisha and her work at Intelligent Mischief at the website:

 www.intelligentmischief.com

This week's episode of Engender features Michael Bussewitz-Quarm, who speaks with Nicky and Brad about her experiences as a composer and advocate for the transgender community. Michael is passionate about effecting change through choral music on topics ranging from the health of the world’s coral reefs and the epidemic of gun violence in the United States to the global refugee crisis.

For more information about Michael, please visit her website: 

https://www.mbqstudio.com/