Music – Creative Minds Out Loud

Episode 108: Learning in Concert

New Bedford Symphony Orchestra (NBSO) Education Director Terry Wolkowicz discusses Learning in Concert, an in-school partnership program between the NBSO and over 40 elementary schools in southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Through this concept-based arts integration program, music educators work with non-arts teachers to remove barriers between a concept (e.g. gravity, space, and sound) and how the students experience it (e.g. employing classical music chord cycles to imitate the gravitation pull and orbital rates of planets).

Terry Wolkowicz received her bachelor’s degree in music education from the New England Conservatory of Music and a master’s degree in education from Harvard University. For the past ten years, she has worked as the Education Director for the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra.

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Episode 107: Youth Workforce Development in Creative Industries

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Kim Dawson is the Director of Advancement at ZUMIX, a venerable creative youth development organization in East Boston. ZUMIX works with a largely immigrant community to better equip its youth to be able to navigate the world once they have graduated out of ZUMIX and high school. Dawson shares how they are expanding their opportunities for workforce development to help youth gain the skills they need to be paid well to do something they really love.

Kim Dawson is an Assistant Professor of Arts Administration in the Music Business/Management Department at Berklee College of Music and the Director of Advancement at ZUMIX. Kim has been working in the nonprofit sector as an artist, educator, administrator, and humanitarian for over 15 years.

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Episode 102: Music Triumphs Over Injustice

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The Boston Gay Men’s Chorus is one of New England’s largest and most successful community-based choruses. Executive Director Craig Coogan discusses their work as performers and cultural ambassadors – in the US and abroad – to inspire change and celebrate difference.

Craig Coogan. Photo by Michael Willer. Craig Coogan joined the BGMC as Executive Director in October 2012. He is an expert in developing strategies and programs to help LGBTQA and other nonprofit organizations achieve their operational and artistic goals. A graduate of Syracuse University, he brings experience in both the for-profit and non-profit arenas.

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Episode 87: There’s the Intent and There’s the Impact

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Lecolion Washington, CEO and Executive Director of the Community Music Center of Boston, discusses some of the barriers to seeing more diversity in symphony orchestras across America, what systemic change takes, and how to create an organizational culture that is success-based, not deficit-based.

Lecolion Washington, CEO/Executive Director of the Community Music Center of Boston. M.M. Manhattan School of Music, B.M. University of Texas at Austin. Mr. Washington has established himself as a leader for the next generation of arts entrepreneurs, and he has been a staunch advocate for the relevance of music as an agent for social change.

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Episode 85: Innovation at the Edge

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David Sun Kong is Director of MIT Media Lab’s Community Biotechnology Initiative; Founder and Board President of EMW Community Space, an art, technology, and community space in Cambridge, MA; a DJ and photographer.

He says there’s a disconnect between the life sciences sector and general public. His work at the intersection of art, science, design, and engineering seeks to “disrupt” our notions of science and the broader human experience of it.

He discusses his work introducing the human microbiome to the public through music and shares how community biology labs around the world are creating an infrastructure to support residents who are excited about science to learn about biotechnology, life sciences, and engage in wonderful hands-on experiences.

David Sun Kong is a Synthetic Biologist, community organizer, musician, and photographer based in Lexington, MA. He is the Director of the MIT Media Lab’s new Community Biotechnology Initiative. Our mission: empowering communities through biotechnology.

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