Puentes Telemáticos / Telematic Bridges 2021

I had a fantastic time collaborating again this year on Puentes Telemáticos / Telematic Bridges, a telepresent, intercultural music course linking students from Santa Ana High School in CA with peers in Manizales, Colombia. This year, we expanded it to a 3-week format, and due to the continued lockdown in Colombia, students there joined from their homes via Zoom, while students in California joined as a group from SAHS. As always, it was such a joy to get to know all the students and see them work on creative projects together, and to collaborate on running the course with my co-directors Mario Humberto Valencia Garcia, Juan David Rubio and Tata Ceballos. We also got tons of help this year from Joseph Kaye, who directs the SAHS orchestra program, and also from six UCI doctoral fellows who brought a wide range of skills and perspectives (thank you Teerath, Atticus, JoVia, Jenni, Caroline and Gema!) My favorite part of this course (pictured here) is always watching the students experiment with conduction, the creative language developed by the late, great Butch Morris. There will be a livestream event on YouTube sponsored by RENATA to share some of the work the students did, taking place on Friday, Aug. 27 at 3pm Pacific Time.