In Summer 2021, All Score Urbana: Community of Song Project will begin a series of virtual workshops, lessons, and events to connect local singers, songwriters, and poets, culminating in a concert of new works written with us and made/performed by community members as part of Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center’s Sounds Like Community concert series. This free-to-the-public series of opportunities will offer mentoring and collaboration with teaching artists, including singers ShayLyssa Alexander, Thereza Lituma, and Michaela Wright, collaborative pianist Michael McAndrew, and composer Ralph Lewis. We want to support many kinds of expression–use the sign up form here. We would love to hear any and outside of the box ideas we can support you on.
We recently received a 2021 Urbana Arts Grant from the Urbana Arts and Culture Program and have begun planning the details of the program and reaching out to community partners to build out this opportunity further.
Examples of Opportunities Within This Program:
• Opportunities that meet curious, beginner, and experienced songwriters, composers, and sound artists where they are at (everyone is welcome!)
• Weekly Songwriting Workshops and Breakout Sessions
• Pairing singers, poets, and teaching artist singers on projects
• An Art of Accompaniment presentation – from Singer, Pianist, Composer, and other perspectives
• Weekly Interactive Zoom or Livestream focused on introducing Digital Audio Workstations (most likely focused on freeware such as ProTools First, GarageBand, and SoundTrap, though we are happy to talk about these concepts within Logic, FLStudio, and elsewhere)
• Virtual Concert in Winter 2021 of your new or existing work for voice
Timeline:
• July-August –Workshops commence
• September/October –Delivery of Your Work to the Teaching Artist Singers to begin preparation
• Late January 2022 – Virtual Concert
Intended Outcomes:
• A better, more connected sense of community for the singers, poets, sound artists, and more that participate
• Welcoming people to a supportive version of the creative process
• Develop new works from page to stage
• Audio/visual documentation (that as long as All Score Urbana and the performers are credited can be used for future opportunities) that can further amplify local artists’ ability to showcase their work or apply for future opportunities
Ralph Lewis: Composer 