Mosaic Scholars create powerful music in one week, perform at Symphony with Soul
[PHOTO ESSAY] Local young musicians completed an intense one-week experience to create original music using an innovative process called “Creative Connections.” The two works were then performed at Symphony with Soul and Celebration of Soul on Saturday, February 18.
On February 18, the Grand Rapids Symphony's Mosaic Scholars finished a week of an immersive musical collaboration and improvisation resulting in the creation of two new musical pieces, one of which was performed at the 10th annual Celebration of Soul event and the other at the concert, Symphony with Soul.
The ideas took their first formation one week before the performance in a four hour session on a Saturday, gradually transforming through the following days to present raw and deeply emotional music, music that was thoroughly owned by every member of the group, because every member had contributed.
The Mosaic Scholar Program was initiated to pair minority Grand Rapids students with professional symphony musicians, according to Claire Van Brandeghen, Director of Education. The program funded five students in its first year, 2007, under the leadership of David Lockington. Since then the program has grown, and developed additional programming that focuses on more meaningful experiences for the students as a group.
In 2012 the symphony discovered Jill Collier-Warne, one of the only American musicians trained in an innovative method for creating music among people of all levels of ability that was begun at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She studied in London in the early 2000’s to start the unique educational focus of the Masters in Music Leadership program, but was forced to return to the U.S. due to family health problems only a month shy of graduating. Through a series of flexible and extraordinary efforts, she was able to complete the program while living in Baltimore, and simultaneously launch the first program of its kind in the U.S.: Creative Connections.
Collier-Warne meets with the Mosaic Scholars on a monthly basis during the year. Then in the final week before concert, her three core team members—Peter Tashjian, Jana Thiel, and Dan Trahey—descend on Grand Rapids to start the intensive sessions that culminate in a performance of new music.
