Projects

Listen Up!

Listen Up! is an arts outreach initiative that engages entire communities in a collaborative arts creation process and demonstrates the role the arts play as a vital component of a healthy social fabric.

Background

Having performed in and created connections with communities large and small throughout Canada (and beyond) for the last 18 years, the Gryphon Trio has observed that while students, parents and educators continue to appreciate the importance of the arts in education, Classical music concert presenters and producers struggle with the challenge of connecting with their audiences.

In response to this growing need, the Gryphon Trio has developed Listen Up! - a national residency initiative that will engage communities throughout Canada in a variety of educational, participatory and collaborative music activities.

The pilot Listen Up! program launched in 2010-2011 in Almonte, Ontario. 2011-12 will bring Listen Up! to Hamilton and Midland, Ontario and a future Listen Up! project is being planned in Kingston, Ontario in 2012-13.

The Listen Up! experience

Listen Up! teaches participants to listen to all music “actively” by engaging them in a process that combines music creation with poetry writing, music improvisation, movement, staging, and video creation.

Listen Up! offers participants a powerful personal arts experience that is rooted in Classical music, offers participant’s parents the  opportunity to re-engage with the arts, offers local concert presenters a unique opportunity to reinvigorate their connection with their community, and encourages local business and associations to support arts initiatives .

The Listen Up! process

Listen Up! begins with the Gryphon Trio consulting community leaders and arts advocates to decide how Listen Up! can best serve local interests, and to asses the community resources which may be brought to bear over the course of the project. Acting as facilitators, the Trio assembles a team of local stakeholders and external resources to carry out the project through a series of residencies over the course of many months.

The strength of the Listen Up! model is its unique ability to be adapted by the Gryphon Trio and partners to fit the interests of each community.

The ‘listening’ in Listen Up! begins with Gryphon Trio representatives and collaborators ‘listening’ to the community itself and adapting the Listen Up! program meet local needs.

Each Listen Up! project culminates in a major public event with members of the community and the Gryphon Trio performing the premiere of the musical work collectively created by the local participants.

The possible variations of the Listen Up! process are as diverse as the communities that host it.

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