Making Learning Sticky: Creative Compassion for Kids & Educators Through Opera with Charles Gamble
Release Date: 04/17/2024
What’s Opera to a Bunch of High School Students? Young Voices, “The New Crop”
Key Change
One of the greatest gifts you can offer a teen is confidence. The other? A process for refining that raw self-assurance into an impressive talent and invaluable life skill. But where to start? At the beginning, of course! Join Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia as they happily infiltrate Orientation Day for the , one of several prestigious youth-focused initiatives at Santa Fe Opera. Get to know this year’s cohort as they share their first-day impressions and program goals. Key Change favorites Amy Owens, director of the Young Voices program, and Charles...
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Points Unknown: Exploring Our Relationship To Otherness Through The Pigeon Keeper
Key Change
To workshop a new opera in front of an audience is a little like agreeing to a trust fall: at some point, you’ve just got to surrender to the unknown and… trust. Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia return to the orchestral workshop for The Pigeon Keeper, a collaboration between Santa Fe Opera’s Opera For All Voices (OFAV) initiative and the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance (SMTD). Andrea and Anna introduce folks to Caitlin Lynch, Assistant Professor of Music at U-M, and Jayce Ogren, Director of Contemporary Directions Ensemble at U-M, the visionary duo...
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Music Born Out of a Modern Experience: The Pigeon Keeper Orchestral Workshop
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It takes a village - and multiple revisions! - to mount a modern, original opera. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia journey to an orchestral workshop for The Pigeon Keeper, a first for (OFAV)! Imagine a stage filled with an eight-member student orchestra, four principal singers, and a women's chorus. Drop in the composer, librettist, and members of the OFAV team. Truncate the rehearsal period and invite an audience for a live presentation plus a feedback session. Now, you understand the excitement and angst surrounding an orchestral workshop. Andrea reconnects...
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From Gardening to Greeting Guests, Volunteers Run the World! with Marissa Aurora, Artist & Volunteer Liaison
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Cue the lights! It’s time to illuminate a vital yet often invisible component of life at Santa Fe Opera: volunteerism. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia chatted with Marissa Aurora, Santa Fe Opera’s , on Marissa's first anniversary in the role. And what a year it’s been! Marissa, a multi-discipline artist and radio DJ, has worked hard to revitalize relationships between the Opera and its volunteers. They've also introduced an exciting new performing arts production internship in collaboration with Northern New Mexico College. So, how do you quantify...
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Harmony in Process: The Young Voices of the Santa Fe Opera with Amy "Process" Owens
Key Change
What does an award-winning, multi-disciplinary artist, dynamic educator, and former Sweet Potato do for an encore? She brings that boundless energy and collaborative spirit to her new Santa Fe Opera role, fueled by a deep passion for opera and music education. Co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia roll out a virtual red carpet welcome for Amy Owens, Director of the . Get to know this exuberant, optimistic talent and learn more about the program under her stewardship. Andrea, Anna, and Amy also explore the profound community impact of two beloved SFO programs: , a storytelling...
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Making Learning Sticky: Creative Compassion for Kids & Educators Through Opera with Charles Gamble
Key Change
We're taking an Opera For All Voices-adjacent excursion to the realm of wiggly kiddos, innovative teachers, and fresh vocabulary words, highlighting the power of playful arts integration. Join Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia with special guest Charles Gamble, Santa Fe Opera's Director Of School Programs, as they introduce two of Santa Fe Opera's most dynamic community engagement programs: , a multi-session residency within the Santa Fe Public Schools that incorporates creative arts to make learning delightfully sticky; and , professional development...
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The Key Change Time Machine: Reflecting the Times, Speaking to the Human Condition
Key Change
It’s all systems go for season five of Key Change! But before we commence with the anniversary celebrations, co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia dust off the time machine for a whirlwind tour of seasons past. Think of this episode as part process evaluation––an appraisal of Opera For All Voices (OFAV), the Santa Fe Opera initiative committed to co-commissioning and co-producing new, diverse operatic works––and part indispensable playlist for repeat audiences and newcomers alike, covering the essential artistic and emotional moments that have made Key Change an...
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Season 5: Stretching The Boundaries Of What Opera Can Be
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It's season 5! This season, we're inviting you, our favorite listeners, on a journey through time and space -- traveling back in time to the origins of Key Change and Opera For All Voices and forward into the future of boundless possibilities. This spring, Andrea Fellows Feinberg and Anna Garcia take you through through the community engagement portal to hear from the voices transforming the future of opera. And in the fall, they'll offer a backstage pass to latest Opera For All Voices commissions as we continue to shift the conversation about what opera is and what it can be. New...
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Connections Across Time and Space: Opera in the Cosmos
Key Change
Seven years ago, Santa Fe Opera started a conversation that would reverberate throughout American Opera, shaping this celebrated art form into something more reflective of the world in which it's created. Today, Opera For All Voices (OFAV) commissions have surpassed even our wildest storytelling expectations. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia tuck into the time machine for a season-ending trip around the OFAV universe, revisiting the initiative's greatest hits and offering fans a glimpse at what's to come––with Ruth Nott, consultant, Opera for All Voices;...
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Competing Interests: How Do You Workshop a New Opera?
Key Change
Roadtrip! After many long months of necessary virtual collaboration, the creative team behind The Pigeon Keeper, a Santa Fe Opera Opera For All Voices (OFAV) commission, finally got to spread their wings for an emotional workshop in San Francisco. Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia discover what it was like to have everyone (well, almost everyone) in the same room for the very first time––featuring composer David Hanlon, librettist Stephanie Fleischmann, stage director Mary Birnbaum, music director Kelly Kuo, dramaturg Cori Ellison, Ruth Nott, consultant for...
info_outlineWe're taking an Opera For All Voices-adjacent excursion to the realm of wiggly kiddos, innovative teachers, and fresh vocabulary words, highlighting the power of playful arts integration.
Join Key Change co-hosts Andrea Fellows Fineberg and Anna Garcia with special guest Charles Gamble, Santa Fe Opera's Director Of School Programs, as they introduce two of Santa Fe Opera's most dynamic community engagement programs: ALTO: Active Learning Through Opera, a multi-session residency within the Santa Fe Public Schools that incorporates creative arts to make learning delightfully sticky; and NMArt Professional Learning Workshops For Educators, professional development workshops that elevate culturally responsive, student-centered teaching and learning via arts-integrated strategies.
We've all had that one teacher who coaxed us out of our comfort zone and into the world of possibility. That teacher was Miss Moretti of the third grade for a shy, socially awkward Charles. She gave him permission to engage with his artistic passions and live more fearlessly. "It was transformative," he explains. "Those experiences with remarkable teachers helped me find my place alongside the other theater and chorus kids."
We're grateful to that long line of encouraging adults. Without them, Charles may never have found a creative home at SFO. As Director of School Programs, Charles is tirelessly pursuing opportunities to make learning accessible and more operatic.
"Opera has it all. Poetry and dance, theater, media, arts, music. It's all there," he marvels. "There's an understanding that as human beings, we're naturally curious. By drawing the arts into the classroom, we're tapping into that natural curiosity and deepening the engagement that students––and their teachers!––have with whatever else they're learning in school."
To Learn More About Becoming a Teaching Artist:
https://www.santafeopera.org/alto-faqs/
For more information, please contact:
Charles Gamble
Director of School Programs
[email protected]
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
ALTO: Active Learning Through Opera | Santa Fe Opera
NMArt Professional Learning Workshops For Educators | Santa Fe Opera
RELATED EPISODES
Key Change: Telling Hard Truths
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Key Change is a production of The Santa Fe Opera in collaboration with Opera for All Voices.
Produced and edited by Andrea Klunder at The Creative Impostor Studios
Hosted by Andrea Fellows Fineberg & Anna Garcia
Audio Engineer: Kabby at Kabby Sound Studios in Santa Fe
Technical Director: Edwin R. Ruiz
Production Support from Alex Riegler
Show Notes by Lisa Widder
Theme music by Rene Orth with Corrie Stallings, mezzo-soprano, and Joe Becktell, cello
Cover art by Dylan Crouch
This podcast is made possible due to the generous funding from the Hankins Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and an Opera America Innovation Grant supported by the Anne & Gordon Getty Foundation.
To learn more about Opera For All Voices, visit SantaFeOpera.org. And for more Key Change, visit SantaFeOpera.org/KeyChange.