Community Engagement Projects
Providing high-quality and meaningful community engagement, both in schools and for young professionals, is a core part of DCWS’ mission. Over 37 years, our commitment has expanded to impact children as young as five all the way through college. In schools and on the concert stage, young people benefit from our artists’ expertise and our audiences’ enthusiasm every season.
CORE 375 Project
In Detroit, our story always runs deeper than you think.
Buried beneath the concrete of our modern streets lies a history of our city that goes back to the beginning of time.
Drilling down below the surface into the history of Detroit’s near east side — generation by generation, century by century, eon after eon — produces what geologists call a “core sample.”
Using images and music, history and science, facts and imagination, Core 375 shows us the many layers and legacies that brought us to where we are today — all compressed into a small, vivid slice, a suite of images, words and sound.
Before the asphalt artery of I-375 paved over large sections of the near east side, the people who walked these paths felt the vital human heartbeat of Black Bottom and Hastings Street. Before that, there were the ribbon farms of the French, who gave Detroit its name. Before that, there was the deep spiritual connection of the Anishinaabe people to hills and rivers that none of us can see today. And before that… mastodons, mammoths, and miles and miles of ice.
Walk with us, and envision the stories, art and culture that shaped our small piece of the world over the past three million years. Examine the core sample that reminds us that Detroit is always, endlessly building on its past — and becoming its future.
PERSEVERANCE OF THE HUMAN SPIRIT
Titled “Perseverance of the Human Spirit,” this project is a collaborative effort between Temple Emanu-El, St. John Armenian Church, and Hartford Memorial Baptist Church. Each congregation will rely on its talent and leadership to share the stories and artistic outputs created by its community. Additional collaborators include the Detroit Opera Resident Artists, the Zekelman Holocaust Center, as well as subject-matter experts from the Western Wayne County NAACP, the Detroit Center for Civil Discourse and the University of Michigan.
RESONATE
Resonate is a multi-year collaboration that explores the African Diaspora through the lens of contemporary American chamber music. The project, under the direction of Detroit Chamber Winds & Strings and the Carr Center, has commissioned seven American composers to create new works to be performed by each of the collaborators during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.
Projects
Established in 2016, Community heART utilizes the arts to strengthen the Highland Park community. CAHP aims to support and develop collaborative activities through promoting the city’s existing vibrant cultural assets and providing residents with access to resources. During the pandemic, CAHP has continued to engage the community through its re-granting program, drive-in events, WHPR radio broadcasts and more. The program is supported by a generous grant from the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation.
Bremen Town Musicians takes the classic Brothers Grimm fairytale and brings it to life in a narrated sing-along story with call-and-response and Q & A. Pre-K through second-grade students participate in a scripted story that utilizes five of our artists. Classical tunes are played alongside familiar children’s songs to capture the spirit of the donkey, cat, dog and rooster who set out on a journey to become musicians.
Musical Elements was introduced in our 2021-2022 season and will be presented at public schools in Wayne and Oakland counties in 2022-2023. The program was commissioned by DCWS and composed by Southfield based composer and educator Kris Johnson. Musical Elements teaches several aspects of classical chamber music using hip hop as an educational medium. Students in grades K-5 learn about the woodwind, brass, and string instruments as well as the musical elements of melody, harmony, unison, articulation and tempos. The presentation is a combination of a scripted lesson, slideshow, and musical performances involving DCWS players and a hip hop artist.
In Science & Sound, third-grade students get a first-hand look at how pitch, frequency, vibrations and wavelengths are produced by musical instruments. Four artists weave a step-by-step process where students touch the instruments, experiment and build their own instruments out of recycled goods.
DCWS annually sponsors a young composer-in-residence and young ensemble-in-residence in collaboration with the University of Michigan and Oberlin Conservatory. Each year, one school provides DCWS with a young composer while the other provides a young ensemble. The composer typically writes a work that the ensemble premieres for a DCWS audience. DCWS is proud to promote the future of chamber music by hosting these young artists in performance and professional development opportunities as they build their careers.
Want to learn more or bring these programs to your school? Contact Jainelle Robinson, Community Engagement Officer, at robinson@art-ops.org or at 248-559-2095.