On Monday (2/29) at New York classical radio station WQXR, Becca Pulliam writes about Carnegie Hall’s season-long Somewhere Project, which “began last fall as teens across the city were invited to create their own songs, using West Side Story as inspiration. The participants then worked with professionals to hone their creations for performances in Neighborhood Concerts. Some of them will also take part in a production of West Side Story, conducted by Marin Alsop at the Knockdown Center in Queens from March 4 to 6.” Somewhere Project participants include students at Brooklyn’s Bushwick Campus Community School and residents of New York Foundling, a housing shelter in Staten Island; among partnering artists and organizations are the Snug Harbor Culture Center in Staten Island; the vocal trio Itty Biddies; Matt Moran, a drummer from the Balkan brass/jazz band Slavic Soul Party; and Bronx Museum of the Arts. “Four members of the Young Deities, a vocal group from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx … have been working with Chris Washburne and his well-respected Latin jazz band SYOTOS…. They are deeply affected by the deaths of African-American men in Ferguson, Mo. and New York, as they declaim in their song ‘Black Lives Matter.’ ”
Posted March 2, 2016
