Monday, November 14, 2011

A praline for your thoughts...

This evening, I touched down at the Louis Armstrong New Orleans International airport. I am glad to be back — I am currently eating a praline and am contemplating the exciting next two days ahead of me. I will be sitting down with representatives from after school initiatives, arts education advocates, youth symphony leaders, local educators, and local musicians (jazz and classical), as well as representatives from the law enforcement and social service community. It will be a whirlwind of community mapping, a microcosm of my time here in New Orleans: exploring the intricate, living, breathing musical/educational/social ecosystem through site observations and many conversations and learning about the needs within New Orleans from individuals and community leaders throughout the city.  This weekend I wore a name tag with a rather large ribbon attached to it proclaiming the words "Be Happy." And I am. 


“What is an orchestra? An orchestra is a community where the essential and exclusive feature is that it is the only community that comes together with the fundamental objective of agreeing with itself. Therefore, the person who plays in an orchestra begins to live the experience of agreement. And what does the experience of agreement mean? Team practice – the practice of the group that recognizes itself as interdependent, where everyone is responsible for others and the others are responsible for oneself. Agree on what? To create beauty. What is it, then, that the orchestra has planted in the souls of its members? A sense of harmony, a sense of order, implicit in the rhythm, a sense of the aesthetic, the beautiful, the universal, and the language of the invisible. That language of the invisible transmitted unseen through music”


José Antonio Abreu



Questions of the Day:
How have you impacted your community?
How has your community impacted you? 
What would the effect be, on both the community and you, if you were to leave? 


Posted by at

3 comments:

  1. Amalachi EweniNovember 15, 2011 at 9:21 PM

    I'm glad you had the opportunity to come back and visit New Orleans, this beautiful place I call home. I have impacted my community by just being a part of it. After Hurricane Katrina, not many people were a part of my community but as timed pasted many people are back. The community impacted me by coming back home were they belong and making our community what It once was. If I were to leave my community, it would lose a sense of youthfulness.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cierra CyresNovember 16, 2011 at 7:10 AM

    It's nice that you have came back to New Orleans and you have experienced such a wonderful time while you were here. New Orleans is a really nice place to come and visit

    ReplyDelete
  3. Briana RobertssNovember 16, 2011 at 7:18 AM

    I'm extremly happy that you have come back to visit the place i was born, the place I love. Katrina destroyed New Orleans, but that didnt stop me and my family from coming back; it's just something about New Orleans that you can't just leave and never come back. If you were born and raised in New Orleans you will forever be a New Orleanian, because home will always be home!

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)