Better Together: Highlighting Education Partnerships
Radical collaboration is core to who we are at Resonance Ensemble. This year marks 15 seasons, made possible in part by the deep partnerships we’ve cultivated across the years with organizations, educators, artists, and community leaders both in Portland and beyond. As part of our special anniversary season, we are highlighting collaborations with 15 of the amazing Portland-based organizations we are proud to call our arts allies. We encourage you to take the time to learn more about each of our partner organizations. As a community, we are better together.
Part One - Educational Partnerships for a Better World
This week, we highlight three of the educational partners we’ve collaborated with to bring our programming to listeners everywhere.
Lewis & Clark College
Lewis & Clark has been a deeply meaningful collaborator across the years. When music professor Katherine FitzGibbon proposed the idea of Resonance Ensemble back in 2009, the college immediately supported the idea in tangible ways. Home to some of our very first performances – and most of our rehearsals since! – Lewis & Clark has been providing logistical, financial, and venue support since Resonance’s inception.
“Without Lewis & Clark, so much of the growth Resonance Ensemble has sustained would simply not have been possible.”
Some of Resonance Ensemble’s most ambitious projects, including the recent music and arts festival, Earth’s Protection, have taken place at Lewis & Clark. With the support of amazing on-site staff like Susan Nunes, and on the beautiful grounds of the LC campus, Resonance Ensemble hosted a multidisciplinary arts and music festival this past June. The festival featured collaborations with Harold Paul’s indigenous dance group Four Directions, an art gallery by beloved photographer Joe Cantrell, live poetry reading by Ed Edmo, a tabla collaboration with musician Shrikant Naware, and the Oregon premiere of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s grand work Mass for the Endangered in collaboration with Fear No Music ensemble.
Lewis & Clark’s support extends outside the concert hall as well, as many Lewis & Clark students volunteer for Resonance Ensemble, have worked as paid interns for Resonance, and attend Resonance events. We are so grateful for their support over these 15 years.
“Lewis & Clark has been a wonderful advocate for and supporter of my work with Resonance Ensemble,” reflects Artistic Director Katherine FitzGibbon. “Without them, so much of the growth Resonance Ensemble has sustained would simply not have been possible, and we can’t wait to see what the next 15 years bring for our partnership.”
Resonance Ensemble will be releasing the full concert video from Earth’s Protection later this month—so be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to catch this amazing collaboration for yourself!
SEE our partnership in action | SUBSCRIBE to our YouTube Channel
Dr. S. Renee Mitchell | SOUL RESTORATION CENTER
Image features Dr. Mitchell being filmed for her “My Requiem Story” episode, as part of the An African American Requiem curriculum materials. Seen here at Soul Restoration Center, with filmmaker Kenny Hamlett. (Photo courtesy of Oh! Creative)
One of Resonance’s most inspiring educational partnerships is with our Poet in Residence, Dr. S. Renee Mitchell. Dr. Mitchell is a published author, curriculum designer, community activist and multi-media artist. She also is a sur-thriver who has found her life purpose since disentangling from bullying, sexual assault, and domestic violence. Through her work with Soul Restoration Center and I am M.O.R.E, two organizations she founded, Dr. Mitchell continues to provide us with community connections, educational, and artist support. We are proud to call her our friend.
After 25 years as an award-winning newspaper journalist - where she was nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize - Renee reinvented herself as a Creative Revolutionist. She earned the doctorate in Educational Leadership from the University of Oregon, and she founded I Am M.O.R.E., an organization that centers young people through culturally relevant, trauma-informed practices to help non-profits, schools, community organizations, and parents learn how to better serve their communities. She has traveled the country presenting workshops about her techniques and creating leadership opportunities for young people. In her work with Resonance, Dr. Mitchell has frequently connected high school students from I AM M.O.R.E with Resonance Ensemble, inviting the students to present their original works at Resonance Ensemble concerts.
We’re also grateful that she lent her expertise as a member of the African American Requiem Advisory Council, and as co-author of the educational curriculum around Damien Geter’s An African American Requiem that has now been used in high schools around the country.
In 2022, Dr. Mitchell was one of the founders of the Soul Restoration Center, a healing-centered, arts-focused Black respite that collaborates with heart-centered individuals, donors, organizations and other partners who value Black lives. In 2022, the Soul Restoration Center served as a healing community space before and after the African American Requiem. She connected Black Student Unions from around the Portland metropolitan area and many additional Black community members with tickets that had been donated to the African American Requiem world premiere. Then, in partnership with Resonance Ensemble, she designed and hosted activities at the Soul Restoration Center: pre-concert educational activities for the Black Student Unions, and post-concert healing and reflection opportunities.
We are so grateful to collaborate with Dr. Mitchell, a visionary leader and mentor who changes lives. She has certainly changed ours.
SEE our partnership in action | WATCH this video
Portland Public Schools
Resonance Ensemble provided Portland Public Schools with conductor Lynn Mendoza-Khan and several mentor singers to support the Latinx Affinity Choir PPS is currently developing. Also pictured (L) Y La Bamba’s Luz Mendoza and (R) PPS VAPA Director Kristen Brayson. Photo courtesy of Oh! Creative
In the realm of education, the power of the arts to inspire and unite communities is undeniable. Resonance has harnessed this power through its multi-year partnership with the Portland Public Schools Visual and Performing Arts (VAPA) team. Through our work with VAPA, led by Director Kristen Brayson, Resonance’s commitment to working toward a more just and equitable future can begin with our ongoing outreach to young people through arts education.
An African American Requiem — a multi-dimensional educational outreach experience (2020-2022) As a member of the African American Requiem Advisory Council, PPS helped us ensure that the performance and experiences surrounding it were connected directly to PPS classrooms. Together, we created a multi-dimensional experience for PPS Black students and families that included curricular integration, in-school presentations, workshops, the live performance, and post-show interactive engagement.
The Latinx Community Choir Project (2022-24) We are proud to support PPS’s groundbreaking initiative to build affinity choir spaces for Latinx-identifying student singers. The PPS Latinx Community Choir is a choir specifically assembled by PPS VAPA staff so that Latinx student singers can gather in an atmosphere of inherent shared understanding and fellowship, with a goal to one day be a true affinity space for Latinx singers. The group, conducted by Resonance singer Lynn Mendoza-Khan, included invited Latinx-identifying PPS student singers and mentor support singers provided by Resonance Ensemble. The project’s inaugural season culminated in a joint performance at the PPS HeART of Portland event at the Portland Art Museum. Students and Resonance singers shared how meaningful it was to be a part of the project, and we look forward to helping PPS grow this important initiative.
Resonance and the VAPA team continue to meet to build support for the Latinx Community Choir during this school year, and we are now planning additional partnership opportunities for Resonance and PPS beginning in 2024.
“We’ve come together as a community on this project, and it has been a beautiful celebration of the students and of a connection across generations.”
We are grateful for our partnership with PPS on these projects that make a difference. Through our work together, we witness the power of music and education transcending the boundaries of the classroom and empowering students to carry the spirit of harmony and inclusivity with them throughout their lives. In doing so, we are indeed, better together.
See our partnership in action | LEARN MORE about An African American Requiem
UP NEXT: We next highlight our radical collaborations with All Classical Radio, Oregon Symphony, and the Regional Arts & Culture Council.
