Youth Jazz Languages Residency
Jazz Languages is a weeklong middle or high school artist residency performance program designed to promote student self-expression, increased literacy, and appreciation of jazz and poetry. The residency involves three professional musicians and a poet, and is led by Fifth Stream Music Artistic Director, Dr. Anthony Brown. Jazz Languages offers the opportunity for all students to write poetry, interact, improvise and perform their work in a creative, collaborative process with professional artists.
Fifth Stream Music is currently piloting an elementary school residency program that operates in the same format as the Jazz Languages residency but substitutes storytelling for poetry.
This experiential educational approach is modeled on the very same democratic process jazz musicians re-enact when new music is introduced to be arranged, rehearsed and performed by a group. The students collaborate in a jazz mode in this transformative interactive process. Each student not only experiences art firsthand, s/he actually becomes the creative and inspirational impetus of the artistic collaboration.
Photos (l to r): Deborah Robison, Kathy Sloane, Deborah Robison, Kathy Sloane