Prof. Judith Eissenberg, Director of MusicUnitesUS, tells the story of the origins of the programs, its successes and challenges, and what we have to look forward to this year. She was interviewed by Shelby Bleiweis, Program and Communications Associate of the Office of Global Affairs. Contributing writer: Marie Zazueta ’11.
MusicUnitesUS is a three-tiered program of Brandeis that encompasses an Intercultural Residency Series, a Public School Education Program and a World Music Series. This year’s fall residency will be called “Lamine Touré and Group Saloum: Bàkk to the Future” and takes place on the Brandeis campus October 13 – 16. For a full schedule of events and activities, click here.
Q: Can you tell us about the origins of MusicUnitesUS?
Judith Eissenberg: MusicUnitesUS (MUUS) started out of a confluence of events: the birth of my daughter in ’98, the events of 9/11, and my questioning of the relevance of my own musical tradition: what does playing late Beethoven string quartets have to do with making a better world for my daughter in these scary times? I really wondered how the music that I played could make a difference. I started off thinking maybe it couldn’t.
After a lot of soul-searching, which included getting certified to teach elementary classroom 1-6, I came up with the core idea of MUUS and its mission statement: to further the understanding and appreciation of diverse cultures through music. Why did I start with the public schools? We form our world views so early, so how might being exposed to cultural expressions such as music affect younger people’s understanding of “the other”? I wanted to bring diverse local world traditions to the social studies classroom and see what would happen.
By pure luck, there was a group, Peru Negro (Black Peru) — this fantastic music and dance group playing concerts in the New England area. It was an interesting group because in a lot of ways it portrayed the effects of colonialism in the performance but also a strong cultural identity rooted in Africa. They dropped by (I had next to nothing to pay them) and I had one school bring a couple of classes to see the performance. It was wonderful. I promised Peru Negro that, if I ever could, I would invite them back for a real residency, not even knowing what I thought that would look like. But already I was thinking that, if I can connect music and art to the curriculum in the elementary classroom, why can’t I do it here at Brandeis?
Peru Negro, the first MusicUnitesUS guests.
Q: What was that first performance like for you?
Judith Eissenberg: We can hear history: through the dense layered rhythms, we hear Africa. Through the mission boxes that were used as the drums, we hear slavery. The guitars and the European harmonies teach us about colonialization. The flutes speak to the indigenous influence. Watching that performance was watching an interpretation of history and constructed (or imagined) identity. So I started to understand what my role might be as an educator and as a musician, or what role music has in a deeper understanding of culture. Music seemed to be a platform where people could come together to have conversations, inspired and brought together by the beauty of human expression. Music can sometimes get right to the heart of things, a different kind of knowing that speaks of shared humanity and dreams…often revealing common roots between people who either don’t understand each other or are even in outright conflict with each other. The music gives hope and helps us to imagine possibilities. And, music teaches us the value of simply expressing ourselves and listening to the other. I think it’s very important for each one of us to speak in a deep way about values that matter to us, and if we speak and let it out whether in a public way or just to the person sitting next to us, there’s more hope that things can work out.
Q: Can you speak about music at Brandeis: the role you feel it plays in the community and the importance of the academic and programmatic sides of music?
Alim and Fargana Qasimov, the spring 2010 Intercultural Residents at Brandeis.
Judith Eissenberg: I feel very much that the different ways to study music—music history, composition, theory, understanding how the notes work, and performing—they are all interdependent and related. So MusicUnitesUS fits within that natural relatedness. With MUUS, I try to connect to other parts of the campus, to have an artistic response to another aspect of art. For example, at a performance last March, we had a poetry class, a drawing class, and a movement class come and respond right there to the performance. And Alim Qasimov, who may be one of the greatest singers in the world, absolutely loved it. He told the dancers that he couldn’t really know what they meant through their dancing, but he thought it was close to what he meant in singing. None of us knew his speaking language, but we understood across that barrier. So that’s something that the creative arts can do.
Q: How easy or difficult was it to get MUUS established in its current form?
The Lydian String Quartet performs for students
Judith Eissenberg: Well, the aim initially with the public school program – which was the beginning of MUUS – was NOT to link the music to the music or arts classrooms, but to the social studies classroom. I wanted to look at music as cultural expression, as a link to social studies. Also, music is on the margins in the curriculum…I wanted a place to make it more central. There were some people in the schools that really ‘got’ it; they got that music could teach about culture, history, and society. I began to create lesson plans to link the performance to the classroom. As far as the university campus, I learned over time that the music also had to find a way into the curriculum of classes, or it would live in the margins as well. We have had some great conversations not connected with classes, but they tend not to be well attended. It takes patience, imagination, and a willingness to think outside the box to make some of these connections between academic subject areas and the arts, but thankfully there are many great thinkers on this campus who gave it a try. I have learned so much from sitting in on these open classes. The challenge is to find real connections. The truth is, art is part of all of us, art comes from us – studying it sometimes makes it seems like something separate from us, but it isn’t – it is human expression, individual expression, cultural expression. Looking (and listening) to music through the various lenses on campus teaches us so much about ourselves and the ways we humans know each other.
Q: Tell us a little bit about this year’s two residencies.
Lamine Touré
Judith Eissenberg: Lamine Touré and Group Saloum are coming for our fall residency. Lamine grew up in Senegal. He is a griot, so he is one of those treasured musicians who carry things from way back through oral tradition. He performs with sabar drumming, using a stick and a hand instead of two hands. One of the things he will do when he comes is create a bàkk, which is a rhythmic motif used in his tradition as an identity marker. For example, a family would have its own bàkk. So I’ve asked him if he could come up with a rhythm for Brandeis when his is here. He has a band: exciting, afro-beat, funky, all sorts of things. At the core of it is sabar drumming, so it will be different from other afro-beat bands, it will be much denser at its rhythmic center. You’ll hear Western harmonies as well as the local tradition, as this music plays on the world music stage.
The second residency highlights Simon Shaheen, one of the most revered Palestinian musicians. He’ll draw from his core tradition of Arabic music as well as other sounds we’re familiar with hearing on the world music stage. The residency will take us by the ear from the local to the more contemporary world music-y kind of sound by the time it gets to the World Music Concert.
Q: Where do you see MusicUnitesUS in the future: in five or ten years?
Simon Shaheen
Judith Eissenberg: Well, I’d love to have “virtual” residencies. I’d like to set up smaller ways of connecting with musicians around the world through video conferencing: for instance a South Asian History, Japanese Language, or Latin American Studies class could each have a musician that they could connect with. We’re on the verge of doing that but haven’t done so yet. I’d like to form a network of other MusicUnitesUS initiatives at other institutions, so that they can do the work of reaching out to the community and across the country, but also share the resources of their university with other universities in the network. I would like to have an endowment so that I can plan ahead. Also, I wish there was a way to have an active way of teaching teachers how to teach music in the classroom at a secondary school level. In addition, I’d like to have artists return to Brandeis to grow on-going relationships with them, and I’d love to have an artist spend a whole semester here. I want to see how far music can take us, in getting to know each other.
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