Robyne Walker Murphy, executive director of Groundswell (Brooklyn, NY), recently spoke to Digging Deep, a website that supports parents and caregivers of young people with serious medical conditions. Throughout the interview, Robyne spoke about the role of artmaking in helping young people to not only understand their identity and place in the world, but also to investigate how they can change it.

“Creating murals on themes that are important to youth artists ignites these young people’s radical imaginations for personal and societal change,” she says.

According to Digging Deep, “For 22 years, Groundswell has been working with youth to not just touch others through their art and words, but to actually provoke the change they want to see in themselves and in the world around them.  Over these years, more than 500 murals have inspired the residents of New York and covered the walls in all five boroughs of Manhattan, with over 200 murals still standing today.  The themes are guided by whatever teens think are their pressing issues at the time, ranging from identity and respect to immigrant rights.”

Robyne ultimately noted that, when speaking with young people, she reminds them: “It is not about what you produce, it’s about what you want to say.”

Read the full article here.

About Groundswell

Groundswell is a NYC-based organization that brings together youth, artists, and community organizations to use art as a tool for social change, for a more just and equitable world. In 1996, a group of New York City artists, educators, and activists founded Groundswell with the belief that collaborative art-making combines personal expression with the strength of community activism—and produces unique and powerful outcomes.

The San Francisco Conservatory of Music recently received a $46.4 million gift from the William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation, one of the largest ever donations to an American music school. According to the NY Times, “The gift will help fund construction of a $185 million, 12-story building on a site just south of San Francisco City Hall. Designed by Mark Cavagnero Associates and scheduled to open in 2020, it will include two concert halls, rehearsal spaces, high-tech studios and classrooms, and will provide housing for the student body.”

“It will shape the future of the conservatory, in one of the most exciting pieces of real estate in the world,” said David H. Stull, the school’s president.

The oldest independent music school on the West Coast, SFCM has broadened its curriculum and explore new avenues for music education. In particular, it’s program in Technology and Applied Composition (TAC) has brought new cohorts into the world of composition.

“Our students learn how to write classical music and real-world production skills at the same time,” MaryCalre Brzytwa, director of the TAC program, said. “Stylistically, they come from many perspectives — jazz, classical or electronic music — and there is a lot of leeway to plan a path of their own. But all of them seem to want rigor.”

Read the full article here.

Cynthia Campoy Brophy will be stepping down from her role as executive director of artworxLA after 26 years. Founded as The HeArt Project in 1992, artworxLA creates pathways for young people in Los Angeles by tapping into the power of the arts.

In a letter to the artworxLA community announcing her decision, Cynthia noted that she is leaving behind a vibrant community of young people, teaching artists, and educators: “I also leave a powerful network of young people who have gone through our program, proudest when I see how they continue to support and encourage each other after they have graduated.  I am grateful to the legions of extraordinary teaching artists who have brought their significant talents into our students’ classrooms to nurture their unique creative voices.  Our partner classroom teachers and educators have long known of the effectiveness of the arts in a well-rounded education and I am forever grateful for their partnership.”

You can learn more about Cynthia’s departure here.

About artworxLA

artworxLA combats the epidemic high school dropout crisis by engaging students in a long-term, sequential arts program offering a pursuable life path that inspires them to stay in school, evolve as unique individuals and flourish as creative adults.

Church Street School for Music and Art (CSS), the only not-for-profit community music and arts school in Lower Manhattan, relocated to its new home at 41 White Street (the former Flea theater) at the end of January, ending a twenty year run on Warren Street. According to the Commercial Observer, CSS was facing an untenable rent at its former location. The White Street home comes with two fully built-out performance spaces, acoustical partitions that may be easily divided into classrooms, and several dressing rooms that will be converted into individual practice rooms. The new space will save the organization $200,000 a year.

Speaking to the The Tribeca Trib, Lisa Ecklund-Flores, founder of CSS, recalls finding the space that would help the school alleviate some of its financial burden. “When I saw the space and the way it was laid out,” she recalled, “I realized it really could house all of our programs without me having to go through an extensive renovation or a long period of time of trying to do a capital campaign.”

Like many other arts schools that have moved from a longtime home, CSS is thinking carefully about how to transition students to the new space. “We’re trying really hard to think of every nuance of that difficulty so that we can make that transition smooth for them,” Lisa said, speaking to the Tribeca Trib. “I hope that they’ll come to us on White Street, just like they came to us on Warren.”

You can read more about the move here.