Combining knowledge and experience as a practitioner of Japanese traditional and folk music, Margaret Ozaki Graves will share some non Western philosophies and tools to inspire new and inclusive perspectives on work in the studio and performance practices.

One of the most powerful social justice movements in music, the Venezuelan El Sistema program has evolved into a worldwide network of youth orchestras. Its collective impact mission is social justice through music making. In addition to teaching classics, the El Sistema vision embraces making music based on community identity: regional dance and folk music. This program dared to bring classical music training to people of color, the underserved and marginalized, saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of children.

Russian composers of the nineteenth century pioneered an innovative `Russian School’ of music, in opposition to the Western models they studied. This presentation argues that while other areas of Russian culture (e.g., art, literature) of the time often pursued familiar progressive agendas promoting anti-authoritarianism and social justice, the music world pursued a conservative vision, supporting a Russian National Idea explicitly based on three pillars: the unquestioned authority of the czar, the transcendent spirituality of the Russian Orthodox church, and the dominant role of Russian ethnicity in a multi-ethnic empire.

In this unique presentation, opera singer and sound meditation facilitator Stephanie Ann Ball will give insights into the science of sound vibrations and why music has a healing effect on the nervous system unlike any other modality.  She’ll explore the African American Spiritual.  The presentation will cover why singing was an integral part of life for enslaved Africans, Black Americans through the Jim Crow era and the Civil Rights movement, and continues to be an important cultural element today.

This presentation will explore the connection between women’s rights and advocacy through Iranian piano music.  Fernanda & Nazila will bring awareness to these difficult issues and inspire musicians in our community to perform and teach this music. They will perform Iranian music from different regions of Iran, explore the connection between Iranian poetry and folk songs, and explain how this music is utilized today across Iran to advocate for women’s rights.

This presentation will discuss the unique lived experiences of Native American people though the history of Classical music’s use in the residential boarding schools, the theft, “sanitization,” and appropriation of traditional and ceremonial melodies, and the subsequent reclamation, resilience, and artistic sovereignty of contemporary Indigenous music makers in the Classical realm.