NEA Grants

Center for World Music Awarded NEA Grant for World Music in the Schools

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On Wednesday, May 6, 2015, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) announced that it will make a $55,000 award to the Center for World Music to implement world music and dance instruction in San Diego schools. The award was among 1,023 awards totaling $74.3 million made by the NEA nationwide in this funding round.

The grant was the largest grant for arts education awarded in the San Diego area, and the third largest in California.

NEA Chairman Jane Chu said, “The NEA is committed to advancing learning, fueling creativity, and celebrating the arts in cities and towns across the United States. Funding these new projects like the one from the Center for World Music represents an investment in both local communities and our nation’s creative vitality.”

For more, see our press release.

Kourosh Taghavi

Spotlight: Persian Classical Musician, Kourosh Taghavi

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San Diego Participant Observer, March 12, 2015

Kourosh Taghavi, master of Persian classical music and pillar of the CWM’s World Music in the Schools program, is featured in an article by Amanda Kelly.

Kourosh Taghavi, instrumentalist, vocalist and Persian classical musician boasts a passionate approach to music that has impacted audiences around the world. His collaborative projects with master musicians and local cultural organizations work to fulfill his lifelong dream to promote Persian classical music. . . .  “It is a very holistic approach to music instead of just notation and sounds,” he says. “Your daily life is so attached to your music and your music is so attached to your daily life they are almost inseparable.”

Read the full article here.

The San Diego Participant Observer is published online by the Worldview Project.  It is a great source for keep up-to-date on cultural goings on in San Diego and environs. Thanks to Tom Johnston-O’Neill and the dedicated crew at the Worldview Project for their support of World Music in the Schools and other Center for World Music projects!

CWM World Music in the Schools

CAC’s “Art Works!” Reports on the Center’s World Music in the Schools Program

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Art Works!, October 2011

The California Arts Council asks a question very important to the Center for World Music: “How can the traditional performing arts of cultures East and West help to promote a healthy and enriched world?”

The California Arts Council (CAC) has supported Center for World Music teaching artist residencies in K-12 schools for over 10 years. The residencies have provided thousands of San Diego students with weekly, year-round, hands-on workshops in the performing arts from six broad cultural areas of the world: South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa, and Europe.

Read more here.

UT Article Photo Canyon Crest

CWM-Canyon Crest Program Receives Grammy Enterprise Award

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San Diego Union Tribune, June 1, 2011

Canyon Crest Academy has become the first public high school in San Diego County to receive a Grammy Signature Schools Enterprise Award. The $5,500 award was in recognition of the high quality of the school’s music program, and in particular its “border-leaping” Javanese gamelan ensemble.

Canyon Crest is the first school anywhere that ever that applied to us for funding for a gamelan ensemble. Our screening panel and blue-ribbon committee — which includes the president of Disney Music and the chairmen of the music departments at USC and UCLA — though that was really cool.

—David R. Sears, Senior Director of Education, Grammy Foundation

Canyon Crest inaugurated its gamelan classes in 2010 in cooperation with the Center for World Music’s World Music in the Schools program. The Canyon Crest gamelan is directed by World Music in the Schools artist in residence Pak Djoko Walujo.

Read the full UT article here.

 

Tabla Class

Spotlight: The Center for World Music

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The Participant Observer, October 2010

The CWM is featured in an article in San Diego’s premier multicultural newsletter . . .

 During the 2009-2010 school year, the Center served 2,210 students at 9 schools with long-term weekly classes (13-28 weeks) and provided an additional 3,240 students at these 9 schools with school-wide assembly performances by the Center’s teaching artists, reaching a total of 5,450 students.

Read the full article here.

Persian Drum Class

San Diego Students Learn About Persian Music and Culture

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Peyk: The Persian Cultural Center’s Bilingual Magazine, September 1, 2010

Our friends at the Persian Cultural Center of San Diego have published a nice article about our World Music in the Schools program in Persian music and culture at King-Chavez Academies in San Diego. The instructor is Kourosh Taghavi, a world-renowned professional setar player, and CWM teaching artist in residence.

Mr. Taghavi teaches about 250 K-5th grade students at King-Chavez Academies, where he is on campus for two full days a week. As the students learn about Persian classical music, they are introduced to Persian culture as well. . . . In the spring of 2010, the demand for the program increased beyond the resources that were immediately available, so the Center reached out to the Iranian-American community in California and members of the community responded generously.

The CWM is thankful for this support, and we’re sure the students would agree!

Read the full story here.