Helen Carswell Chair
In Community Engaged Research in the Arts
About the Helen Carswell Chair
The Helen Carswell Chair in Community-Engaged Research in the Arts at York University promotes collaborative research between the university and community arts organizations. In partnership with the Community Music Schools of Toronto at Jane and Finch, it supports projects that enhance arts education for children and youth in underserved communities. Through annual research opportunities, the initiative encourages inclusive, accessible, and socially impactful arts programming.
About
- Conduct rigorous academic research exploring the benefits of community music programs and the links between music and learning
- Significantly benefit children from high-risk neighbourhoods and fortify community music programs globally through publications and knowledge mobilization
- Engage and help drive new knowledge and practice to community based groups serving children in the Jane and Finch community
Community Music Schools of Toronto (CMST) is a key partner in the Helen Carswell Chair. Specifically, our partnership collaborates with CMST’s program in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood.
CMST at Jane & Finch provides access to subsidized private, group and ensemble music lessons to children and youth aged 4-18 in the Jane and Finch community. By removing the financial obstacle for music lessons, CMST gives young Jane and Finch residents the opportunity to explore a wide variety of musical interests from classical piano, strings, voice, brass, wind and percussion to electronic music, songwriting and recording. Through CMST’s unique Creative Curriculum, students explore many genres of music and achieve meaningful social and musical goals throughout their studies.
For more information on CMST- Jane & Finch, visit https://www.communitymusic.org/.
Learn more about CMST from Director, Richard Marsella here:
Listen to CMST students perform “A Little Voice”:
For more CMST videos, visit their YouTube Channel here.
Joel Ong, Ph.D
Associate Professor
Department of Computational Arts
School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design
The study, teaching, and implementation of academic research in the arts relies on its connection to external and “real-world” artistic practice. With resonances both internal and external to the University, I believe strongly in the role of the Helen Carswell Chair in bringing research-creation methodologies to support experimental research and its opportunities for community engagement, stemming from a deep commitment to the hyperlocal neighbourhoods around the university, and to the faculty and students here for whom institutional support and community connections are at a “metabolic” level of accountability. As a researcher I have also realized an equal role of mutual respect and relationship-building that must go hand in hand with the extraction of information from the community, a culture that previous Carswell Chairs have historically focused on at York that prioritizes the ethics of engagement with communities of vulnerable groups (especially youth) through music and the broader arts.
I am confident this position can strengthen communications with researchers and administrative groups within the university in order to locate the role of the researcher as collaborator within the community-led process of self-determination as opposed to that of extractive visitor.
Established and supported by the Carswell Family Foundation in 2016, the Helen Carswell Chair supports research that explores community cultural development. With a focus on fostering a mutually beneficial relationship with the Jane and Finch community, the Helen Carswell Chair is proud to have a long-term partnership with CMST – Jane and Finch, the most recent branch of the incredible Community Music Schools Toronto. Through our work with CMST and other Community Arts organizations, we seek to disseminate new knowledge and research to community-based groups in the Jane and Finch community and in other high-risk neighbourhoods around the world.
As a fellow researcher and community activator, I am honoured to be a part of this mission to support community-engaged research in the arts. I look forward to working with community leaders in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and beyond as we explore how arts can empower and represent children of all ages, from all backgrounds.
Oct 1, 2023
Dr. Ong’s current research is located at the burgeoning intersection of digital media and the life sciences that is developed through the metaphor of the ‘oikos’ (house, dwelling), the root word for ‘ecology’. This axis of research explores how emerging technological systems may contribute to, afford, or constitute (for instance virtually) hospitable environments for life and diversity to thrive. His work in the Jane-Finch community also considers how immersive digital systems may shape and augment oral narratives, text, images and other forms of archiving in geographies of drastic transition. You can learn more about his research here.
Uzo Anucha, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, York University
Sarah Bay-Cheng, Dean of the School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design (AMPD), York University
Joel Ong, Helen Carswell Chair and Associate Professor, School of AMPD, York University
Richard Marsella, Executive Director of Community Music Schools of Toronto
William Thomas, Associate Professor, School of AMPD, York University
Karen Burke, Chair of the Department of Music, School of AMPD, York University
Vanessa Chase, Community Music Schools of Toronto, Program Manager, Jane and Finch
Jennifer Foster, Associate Professor, Faculty of Environmental and Urban Change, York University
Jillian Fulton-Melanson, Department of Anthropology, York University
Byron Gray, Manager, TD Community Engagement Centre, York University
Carl James, Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora and the Affirmative Action, Equity & Inclusivity (AAEI) Officer, York University
Michael Johnny, Manager, Knowledge Mobilization Unit, York University
Lorna Schwartzentruber, Associate Director, Access Programs and Community Engagement, Vice-Provost Academic, York University
The Helen Carswell Chair in Community Engaged Research in the Arts is funded by the Carswell Family Foundation.
Proposals
Research
Topics & Final Reports
Content / Programming
- Group Piano Programming
- Music Technology Programming
- Steelpan Programming
- Intergenerational Pan Programming
- Youth Storytelling through Media Arts
- Creative Music-Making Workshop for Wind Musicians
- Extended Reality (XR) Practices for Music Group Improvisation
- Exploring Sound, Music and Learning with Modular Synthesizers
Pedagogy
Equity and Diversity
- Serving Racialized Communities
- Pan-African Repertoires
- Repertoires and Representation
- Cultural Connections through Music
- Black artists in performing arts: curriculum guide and assessments (JK to secondary)
Community Contexts
- Jamming! Oral Histories, Food Justice and Music Making
- Environmental Scanning
- Asset mapping in Jane and Finch
- Data Mapping of Music Making
Project Snapshots
Andrea Emberly
Andrea Emberly is an ethnomusicologist and Associate Professor in the Children, Childhood & Youth program at York University. Her work focuses on the study of children’s musical cultures and the relationship between childhood, wellbeing, and musical arts practices. Her work intersects with music sustainability in terms of how children and young people access, innovate, and mobilize musical arts practices within their communities and beyond. She is currently working on several community-led collaborations with refugee and newcomer children and young people, community organizations, and refugee settlement agencies across the GTA and internationally. These projects explore how children and young people mobilize music and arts as a means to push-back against the silencing of children’s voices through processes of migration and displacement. These projects are committed to community-led knowledge mobilization, transforming the ways we use research with children and young people as a tool for change.
Project title: “Singing Our Stories Together: Supporting community-based music programs for equity-seeking young people through creative arts-based pedagogies.
Kael Reid
Kael has a PhD in Education from the University of Toronto. During their doctoral research, they investigated how songs composed and recorded from interviews conducted they with 2SLGBTQI+ families opened up dialogue with equity-seeking youth about gender, sexuality, embodiment, and relationships. Currently, Kael is a Postdoctoral Fellow and instructor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies at York University where they are working on two arts-based research projects with newcomer and refugee young people. These projects examine how community music programs, songwriting, recording, performance, and other art-based activities enable newcomer and refugee youth to develop and extend their expressive skills, build connections and collaborative networks, and experience personal empowerment and wellbeing. As part of this research, Kael uses an innovative, participatory research creation method they developed called, “collaborative ethnographic songwriting.” A robust method for collecting, analyzing, and disseminating research data through music, collaborative ethnographic songwriting supports equity-seeking people to compose, record, and document their stories in song. Using this method, Kael has worked as an artist researcher on various research digital storytelling and research-informed theatre projects as well as with 2SLGBTQI+ individuals and families, breast cancer survivors, newcomer and refugee youth.
Kael is also singer-songwriter and whip smart wordsmith, and they’re sure to entertain. Slam-storytelling meets many a queer-themed tune in Kael’s songs, which just might have you rolling in the aisles with laughter or dabbing tears from your eyes. With five albums under their belt and a slew of singles, they perform at live music venues, music and Pride festivals, youth and arts conferences, universities, public schools, union meetings, and in people’s living rooms and back yards. Kael also combines musical activism with public pedagogy by facilitating workshops, giving concerts, and delivering musical keynote addresses for universities and colleges, secondary schools, and conferences, community service organizations.
Project title: “Singing Our Stories Together: Supporting community-based music programs for equity-seeking young people through creative arts-based pedagogies”
Keisha Bell-Kovacs
Keisha Bell Kovacs is pursuing a Ph.D. in musicology with a focus on jazz studies through a lens of race and gender. She is a pianist, composer, and arranger and performs regularly with her trio in Toronto. She has arranged scores for York University’s Media Music Concert, which features a student-led wind ensemble. Keisha has had a lengthy career teaching Western art music theory, history, piano performance and pedagogy. She earned a master’s degree in composition in 2020 and released her first album, Caribbean Yellow in 2022. Her book review for Liner Notes for the Revolution was published in the MUSICultures journal in the fall of 2023, and she is a two-time recipient of the John Arpin Award for Fine Arts.
Project title: “Breaking Free: Investigating a Decolonized, Student-Centred Alternative to the Royal Conservatory of Music Piano Syllabus”
Stephen Carr
Stephen Carr is pursuing PhD studies in musicology and ethnomusicology at York University, with a research focus on expanding academic approaches to vocal performance pedagogy. He also teaches as a sessional lecturer at the University of Toronto’s School of Music and as a stagecraft specialist at the Royal Conservatory of Music in downtown Toronto.
Stephen spent eight years as an Associate Professor of Opera and Musical Theater Studies at the Eastman School of Music and Associate Artistic Director of Eastman Opera Theater. His productions at Eastman included Les Dialogues des Carmélites, which was awarded the American Prize for Stage Directing, and staged collaborations with composers Missy Mazzoli, Anthony Davis, Kevin Puts, Adam Guettel, and Jake Heggie. He has also served on the faculty of the Interlochen Arts Institute and the Senzoku Gakuen Conservatory of Music in Tokyo, where he helped to create one of the leading undergraduate musical theatre programs in Asia. You can learn more about his work at www.stephen-carr.net
Project title: “Decentering Western Art Music in the Training of Young Singers”
Uzo Anucha, Associate Professor in the School of Social Work and the founding Director of the Applied Social Welfare Research and Evaluation Group. Dr. Anucha conceptualizes her applied research scholarship as a community dialogue that must fully engage the community studied. She actively seeks to bridge the gap between knowledge production and knowledge use by translating and disseminating research findings to end users (policy-makers and practitioners) using multiple channels. She frequently presents her work in diverse forums that are accessible to communities, agencies and policy makers.
Read more about Professor Anucha here.
Project: “Data and stories for action: A multi-method evaluation strategy for RPSM programs for youth” (2019)
Sophie Bisson is an opera singer and a doctoral candidate at York University where she is a graduate research associate of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies (RCCS) and co-editor of RCCS’s Canada Watch (Spring 2022 edition). She is also the creator and editor of the online Encyclopedia of Canadian Opera (spring 2022).
A recipient of the Sunnuz Sarah Taheri Graduate Award in Fine Arts and a Helen Carswell Research Grant, she has written numerous reviews and articles featuring Canadian musical content. She has presented on topics that include how institutional policies influence the creation of opera in Canada, re-righting the wrongs of Louis Riel’s Kuyas, the evolution and themes of the Canadian aria, and articles on the revival of Claude Vivier’s opera Kopernikus. She also presents on and guides others through the challenges and possible solutions for disseminating large-scale digital humanities projects in music and in the arts in general.
Sophie’s dissertation examines the representation of women in nine twenty-first century Canadian operas and her Helen Carswell research project revisits Canadian operatic history with an inclusive lens to highlight Black opera companies, works, and artists.
Project: “Black Opera: A showcase of Black opera companies, works and artists” (2022)
Prof. Karen Burke - Former Helen Carswell Research Chair
Karen Burke is a professor of music at York University. Her music career also includes work as a busy guest speaker and conductor, adjudicator and clinician offering gospel music workshops. She is co-founder and Artistic Director of the Toronto Mass Choir (TMC), a Juno award-winning gospel choir which has recorded 12 albums and toured in ten different countries including Italy, Romania, Poland, and the Dominican Republic. In 2006, Burke established G.I.V.E. (Gospel Inter-Varsity Explosion), which is an annual gospel music festival to educate, encourage and showcase gospel choirs at post-secondary institutions. In 2013, Prof. Burke established the City Youth Gospel Project, a gospel music festival designed exclusively to teach and share gospel music to hundreds of middle and high school students and their teachers at a time.
In 2016, York University appointed Prof. Burke as the Inaugural Fellow for the Helen Carswell Chair in Community Engaged Research in the Arts providing leadership for community engaged research in the Jane and Finch community, in particular, to assist the Regent Park School of Music- Jane & Finch and other community arts organizations.
Email: burkek@yorku.ca
Website: https://karenburke.ca
Patty Chan is a second-generation Chinese Canadian erhu musician, educator, and author. She is the Music Director of the Toronto Chinese Orchestra, Co-Founder of the cross-cultural PhoeNX Ensemble, and Director of Centre for Music Innovations (musinno.com).
As an erhu musician, Patty has collaborated with many ensembles and organizations, including the Strings of St. John’s, Red Snow Collective, the Toronto Masque Theatre, and the Canadian Children’s Opera Company. She has performed in world premieres of theatre/opera productions such as Red Snow (2012), The Lesson of Da Ji (2013), Comfort (2016), and The Monkiest King (2018). Patty’s composition, Redemption: The Chan Kol Nidre (2015) for erhu and viola da gamba has been added to the archives at the Beit Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv, a museum for the Jewish people.
Patty has taught erhu and Chinese music at York University, Ryerson University, and Carleton University. She has led and participated in music exchanges and tours in Canada and Asia. Patty has written several books about the erhu that have sold in over 30 countries, and a storybook in three languages about Chinese instruments for children. She is also currently creating a Chinese music database for English readers at the Centre for Music Innovations in partnership with the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra in Taiwan.
An MA graduate in ethnomusicology, Patty’s area of research is in the exploration of the history and development of Chinese orchestral music in Canada and its impact on identity and community. She worked with CMST faculty and students to develop a program that forged cultural connections through music.
Project: “Cultural connections through music” (2022). Final report here and video summary here.
Karen Headlam Cyrus, Ph.D., LRSM, OCT
- Group piano pedagogy
- Pan-African Music Repertoires
- Repertoire and Representation
Karen Cyrus is the Helen Carswell Research Associate (2017 to 2021). Her research interests include pan-African children’s music, group piano pedagogy, community music practices, and intersections between musicianship and second language acquisition: “music as a second language.” She holds an LRSM in Piano Pedagogy, MA degrees in ethnomusicology and applied linguistics, a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology, and she is a member of the Ontario College of Teachers. Karen started teaching group piano classes in 1993 in her piano studio in Jamaica; then, after migrating to Canada, she taught group piano classes at York University while earning her doctorate (2015). She is now a regular workshop facilitator on group piano pedagogy.
Her recent exposition on the nature and definition of repertoire development was recently published in The Sage Encyclopedia of Music and Culture (2019) and her research on participatory music-making in diasporic contexts has been published in Carnival: Theory and Practice (Africa World Press, 2013) and MUSICultures (2014). Karen has also written a series of music education textbooks with cultural content from the Caribbean – Music for Big Ants and Little Ants (1998) and Caribbean Integrated Music (2002/04) – as well as music curricula for community music programs in Toronto. She co-founded and is the music director of T. Mento, a Toronto-based band that seeks to preserve the musical style of Jamaican mento music.
See Karen’s 2018 final report
Email: kcyrus@yorku.ca
Barbara Evans, Associate Professor in the Department of Cinema and Media Arts, has worked extensively as a film director, producer, writer, researcher and editor. A graduate of the University of British Columbia and the National Film and Television School (UK) in film direction, she has worked in the UK for educational television, the BBC, ITV and on films sponsored by the British Film Institute. She was a founding member of the London Women’s Film Group and the British Newsreel Collective. In Canada, she has worked as editor for the National Film Board on such documentaries as Wonderland and Bitter Medicine, and on the feature films Latitude 55 and Walls.
Read more about Professor Evans here.
Project: “Programming youth media arts via sight, sound, and storytelling modules”. Read more about Professor Evans’ project here with her final report found here.
Honor Ford-Smith is Associate Professor in Cultural and Artistic Practices for Environmental and Social Justice in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Her research focuses on community-based performance and politics in the context of the Caribbean and its diaspora. She has held fellowships at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, Amherst College and the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center. A Jamaican and Canadian director and scholar, Ford-Smith began her work in the context of social and political movements in Jamaica in the 1970s. Stirred by the anti-colonial and panAfricanist reggae music of the time and mentored by Caribbean writers like George Lamming, Kamau Brathwaite and Dennis Scott, she emerged as a theatre director and scholar committed to community-based collaborative performances that stressed oral testimony, social history, autobiography and ritual forms in search of intersecting forms of social justice. As founding artistic director of the Sistren Theatre Collective, an early Black and Caribbean feminist organization, she researched women’s lives and histories and, with the collective, produced a repertoire of plays which toured the world, a collection of oral histories Lionheart Gal: Lifestories of Jamaican women (UWI Press 2006). Sistren became an important and much studied example of cultural activism in the global south.
On moving to Canada, Ford-Smith focused on performance as a site of knowledge production that engendered anti-imperial nationalism in postcolonial Jamaica. Her body of work includes several publications and articles in scholarly journals: anthologizing plays of the period in 3 Jamaican Plays: A Postcolonial Anthology (1977–1987); writing on the pedagogy and politics of Marcus Garvey’s UNIA (Interventions: International Journal of Post-colonial Studies, Vol. 6, Number 1, 2004); “The Body and Performance in 1970s Jamaica: Toward a Decolonial Cultural Method.” (Small Axe, vol 23 no 1, 2019); “The Ghost of Mikey Smith: Space, Performance and Justice.” (Caribbean Quarterly, Vol. 63. Issues 2–3. 2017); and more. Her SSHRC funded research on memory and violence in Jamaica and Toronto 2007–2017 led to a cycle of performances entitled Letters from the Dead which witnessed and mourned the effects of state sanctioned violence in Jamaica and elsewhere.
Project: “Oral History, Food Justice and Music Making”. Learn more about her project here and read her final report here.
Pratik Gandhi is a conductor, percussionist, clinician, and researcher based in Toronto. He currently serves as music director of the Rouge River Winds and vice-chair of the Concert Band Division of MusicFest Canada. Pratik is pursuing a Ph.D. in music at York University, where his research, supported by an Ontario Graduate Scholarship, investigates issues of equity and representation among wind band composers in Canada. He has been an active member of the wind band community in Canada for over a decade, and is passionate about creating space and opportunities within it for composers from historically excluded groups. Recent publications include a feature on Cait Nishimura’s “Lake Superior Suite” for WASBE World and an analysis of composer representation on Canadian festival syllabus lists for Canadian Winds. Pratik holds degrees in music education and conducting from Western University.
Project: “Improvisation and creativity workshop for wind, brass, and percussion students (featuring guest composers)” (2022). Hear more about Pratik’s project here and read his final report here.
Walter S. Gershon, Ph.D.
Music technology programming
Walter S. Gershon is an associate professor in the School of Teaching, Learning & Curriculum Studies, served as Provost Associate Faculty for Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (2014-2017) and is LGBTQ Affiliate Faculty at Kent State University. His scholarship focuses on questions of social justice about how people make sense, the sociocultural contexts that inform their sense-making, and the qualitative methods used to study those processes. Although his work most often attends to how marginalized youth negotiate schools and schooling, Walter is also interested in how people of all ages negotiate educational contexts both within and outside of institutions.
In addition to peer reviewed articles, book chapters, and guest edited special issues, Dr. Gershon is the author of two recent award-winning books—Curriculum and Students in Classrooms: Everyday Urban Education in an Era of Standardization (Lexington Books, 2017) and Sound Curriculum: Sonic Studies in Educational Theory, Method, and Practice (Routledge, 2017). An edited volume, Sensuous Curriculum: Politics and the Senses in Education (IAP), is currently in press.
See Walter’s 2019 Final Report, including links to his following publications:
–Components of a Digital Technology Music Class: Educational Workshops
–Components of a Digital Technology Music Class: Resource Guide
Email: wgershon@kent.edu
Website: http://www.waltergershon.com
Sharon Hayashi is Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Cinema and Media Arts at York University. Hayashi’s research focuses on the intersection of care, community and media in Japan and North America, working with local knowledge to envision social futures. Visualizing and archiving the spatial practices and networks of care and mutual aid of artistic and social collectives, recent projects experiment with participatory, sensory, socially engaged, and interdisciplinary approaches. Current projects include Mapping Tokyo Olympics 3.0, a collaborative sensory archive of the recurring displacement of precarious communities that combines digital storytelling methods, 360-degree video, sound recording, and archival resources. Using play to intervene in and reimagine social problems, the creative practice ethnography Awa Money/Our Money, a local currency game co-designed by local residents, promotes and reimagines wellness and sustainability in rural Japan.
Read more about Professor Hayashi here.
Project: “Programming youth media arts via sight, sound, and storytelling modules”. Read more about Professor Hayashi’s project here. Her final report can be found here.
Munjeera Jefford, M.Ed., Ph.D. Candidate
Munjeera is a Ph.D. student at York University in the interdisciplinary department of Social and Political Thought, LAPS. She was previously an ESL instructor and supervisor with the Toronto District School Board for over 15 years. Munjeera’s research interests include decolonizing education management. Her Helen Carswell research project aims to help community music teachers integrate inclusive teaching strategies in their classes through “funds of knowledge,” a decolonizing instructional strategy.
Project: “Representation in Curricula: ‘The Funds of Knowledge’ Strategy” (2021)
Email: munjeera@yorku.ca
Diane Kolin is a PhD student in musicology in York University. Her diverse research interests include Critical Disability Studies, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Franz Liszt, and her dissertation focuses on professional musicians, composers, and music specialists with disabilities. Between her duties as editor in chief of the Journal of the French Beethoven Society, Diane frequently writes in journals and presents at conferences that center on both composers and offer her the unique opportunity to explore important sites of musical history. The study of Beethoven’s deafness and Diane’s personal history led to her research in disability and music. Her collaborations with disabled musicians in the professional musical world allow her to expose new ideas on making music more accessible to a broader audience. Diane is also a singer and music educator who advocates for more accessibility in orchestras and choirs.
Project: “A Discovery of Adaptive Instruments” (2023). Read about Diane’s project here and watch her discuss “Accessibility in Music” here.
Kurt Thumlert is associate professor in the Faculty of Education at York University in Toronto, Canada, and is an executive member at York’s Institute for Research on Digital Literacies (IRDL) as well as research associate at the TMU Responsive Ecologies Lab (RE/Lab). His current research focuses on informal learning, new media and technology studies, production pedagogy, and learning through making with sound-based technologies and non- traditional musical tools supportive of more inclusive sound-based learning. He is most recently associated with The Canadian Accessible Musical Instruments Network (CAMIN), a project oriented to disability-led design of instruments and sound-making tools.
Dr. Jason Nolan is autistic, the John C. Eaton Chair in Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and associate professor in Early Childhood Studies at Toronto Metropolitan University. Nolan directs the Responsive Ecologies Lab (RE/Lab) and the Experiential Design and Generative Environments (EDGE) lab. Nolan’s background in designing adaptations for disabled children stems from a perspective of design initiated by children and their families with the goal of supporting their sensory exploration of the world around them and the communication of their goals, interests and needs to their carers. Nolan’s research approach focuses on reconceptualizing music education and exploration of acoustic sensory information in early learning environments from a social justice lens of equity, diversity and inclusion. Nolan’s present work is on the missing modality of auditory sensory play and exploration with DIY electronic and found objects, and innovations in pedagogical approaches for marginalized communities through three SSHRC funded projects: Canadian Accessible Musical Instrument Network, Facilitating Anti-Ableist Remote Music Making and Sounding off: Learning, communicating and making sense with sound.
Project title: “Sounds out of bounds: Exploring sound, music and learning with modular synthesizers”
Joel Ong, Ph.D.
- Data Mapping Music Making
- Music technology programming
I am a new media artist whose works are characterized by systems of fluidity between software and hardware paradigms. At my current role as Assistant Professor at the Department of Computational Art in York University. My research and pedagogy focus on Creative Coding, Physical Computing and Digital Fabrication, though the conceptual explorations underpinning these practices often span a wide variety of cross disciplinary methodologies. My current research casts elemental media (such as wind or rain) in the environment in a triptych of forms – in vivo, in vitro and in silico – symptomatic of the way computational creativity is becoming an indispensible resource for scientific explorations of the environment.
With the Carswell research group, my work focuses on the narrative potential of everyday life for RPSM students and hopes to equip students with digital tools to make the most of their weekly lessons. While focusing on pedagogical strategies within demands of digital literacy today, I aim to complement the project with elements such as student-led outpours of narrative field recording, music composition, improvisation etc., computational visualizations, mobile app building and more. My personal work can be found at ark frequencies.com and my Institutional profile here: https://ampd.yorku.ca/people/joel-ong/
AMPD Profile: https://ampd.yorku.ca/people/joel-ong/
See Joel’s 2019 Final Report, including links to his following publications:
–Components of a Digital Technology Music Class: Resource Guide
–Components of a Digital Technology Music Class: Educational Workshops
Email: joelong@yorku.ca
Website: www.arkfrequencies.com
Phone: 416.736.2100 ext 77322
Michael Palumbo (MA, BFA) is a musician and software developer. His PhD research focuses on electroacoustic music improvisation, distributed creativity, and version control. These interests are expressed through the projects Mischmasch, a multiplayer XR modular synthesizer; the Sonic Throwable Object, a wireless musical instrument designed for differently abled children; and git show, a digital musical instrument design and composition experiment involving many composers. Michael works as an engineer and researcher at both the Alice Lab for Computational Worldmaking and Responsive Ecologies Laboratory. As a freelancer, he develops custom software for musicians and maintains open-source music software such as allhandsjs. A Toronto-based musician, Michael performs regularly in free-improvisation ensembles, and produces the monthly online concert series Exit Points which in response to isolation during the pandemic has introduced over 200 musicians to online performance, including free one-on-one lessons for each performer tailored to helping them set up their home studio.
Project title: “A Community Music Approach to Collaborative Sonic Spaces in WebXR”. Read his final report here.
Cathy Pavlik, Ph.D. Candidate
Trauma informed pedagogy
Cathy Pavlik is a voice teacher (ARCT) with the RCM (advanced specialist), and holistic academic skills tutor (OCT). Following a successful career as a public school teacher, grades 1-12, (B.Ed) she auditioned for a spot in the classical voice program at York (M.A.), where she began to work through her own performance anxiety through research, practice and performance.
Cathy is a PhD. candidate in the Music Department. Her Ph.D. research is focused on the causes, coping and cures for performance anxiety. She has also begun investigating the impacts of trauma and Adverse Childhood Experiences on education and performance. Cathy is a certified emotional success coach, and EFT practitioner. She helps students and musicians to release emotional blocks to move towards peak performance.
See Cathy’s 2018 Final Report
See Cathy’s 2019 Final Report
Email: cathypavliksings@gmail.com
Website: www.catherinepavlik.ca
Michaela Pňaček(ova) is an award-winning XR artist, PhD candidate and ELIA scholar at Cinema and Media Arts at York University, Toronto. As Graduate Assistant at the Immersive Storytelling Lab headed by Dr. Caitlin Fisher, she’s worked on multiple prototypes focusing on human-machine co-creation in emerging media (using Unreal Engine, GANs, and NLP). Research assistant at B2AI Project (National Institute of Health, Simon Fraser University and University of Montreal). She was commissioned to work as creative technologist and creative director for projects such as FairEVA, a Mozilla Trustworthy AI Project, Sensorium, Peripheral Visions Lab, Reeperbahn Music Festival (DE) and others. Creator and producer of Symphony of Noise VR (2019) (FIVARS Award for Excellence in Sound Design 2020, VRNow 2021 Best VR Entertainment Nominee, IDFA and MIT R&D Program Selection, 2019 Best XR Installations List by Forbes Magazine). She is the co-creator of Pre-Crime Calculator App and producer of three feature length documentaries (Border Cut 2018, Waterproof 2019, Scars 2020). In 2019 she co-produced Chomsky vs. Chomsky: First Encounter VR (Sundance Film Festival 2020).
Project title: “A Community Music Approach to Collaborative Sonic Spaces in WebXR”. Read her final report here.
Sam Tecle, Ph.D. Candidate
Asset Mapping in Jane and Finch
Sam Tecle has been a community worker and advocate for over 15 years. He has worked with the Jane and Finch Boys and Girls Club, the Toronto District School Board, Youth Leaps, Success Beyond Limits and currently with York University’s Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora.
He has worked in both traditional and alternative classrooms and always advocated for the tearing down of barriers racialized youth face in the education system. Sam has also spearheaded the first official program offered by the TDSB aimed to reintegrate youth who have had contact with the criminal justice system, offering both educational credits and reintegration services. In addition, Sam has been a commentator on youth issues, violence and police interactions in the Globe and Mail, CBC’s Metro Morning and The Current.
Sam is currently completing his PhD in the Sociology Department at York University and his areas of research focus include Black and Diaspora Studies, Urban Studies and Sociology of Education. His dissertation focuses on the experiences and perspectives relating to Blackness and Black identification of East African Diasporas across the UK, Canada and the US. His dissertation (2018) is titled: Black Grammars: On Difference and Belonging. Sam is also Co-Chair of York University’s Black Graduate Students’ Collective (BGSC) which works towards better experiences of Black graduate students at York.
Email: samtecle@yorku.ca
Learn about Sam’s research here
Jamie Whitecrow is a self-taught artist and filmmaker from Seine River First Nation, Treaty #3, based out of Toronto, ON. Her practice includes writing, visual art, music, filmmaking, and performance. She has an educational background in philosophy and Indigenous community development, and is completing her MFA in Film Production at York University.
Project: “Programming youth media arts via sight, sound, and storytelling modules”. Read more about her project here. Read Jamie’s final report (2022) here.
Salah Wilson, Ph.D.
- Steelpan Programming
- Intergenerational pan programming
For the last fifty years, steelpan development has been a hobby, a means of livelihood, a cultural expression, a focus of study, and a passion for me. It has taken me from my place of birth Trinidad— where this instrument originated— to Montreal in 1973, where I have spent the most of my life to date, and finally to Toronto where I began my studies since 2012 at York University.
I am presently a PhD. candidate in the Music Department and my main focus of study is steelpan development. I see the involvement with Carswell and the RPSM as a vehicle to pursue this concept, at the same time producing relative programs and ways and means to assist various organizations. I look forward to a continuing relationship with Carswell and the RPSM.
Learn about Salah’s research here
See Salah’s 2018 Final Report
See Salah’s 2019 Final Report
Email: sal_wils@hotmail.com
Website: www.steelpanplus.com
All Helen Carswell projects involving human participants require ethics review and funds are disbursed only after ethics clearance. The process for acquiring ethics approval usually begins after the Helen Carswell Adjudication process is completed and successful applicants are notified.
- To learn more about the research ethics process, visit the Office of Research Ethics (ORE)
- Required forms for research involving human participants are found here.
- For updated information on the research guidelines from York University’s Vice-President Research & Innovation, see “Research Ethics Questions”.
- As of March 15, 2022, York’s Office of Research Ethics expects all graduate students to complete the 2022 TCPS tutorial and submit the corresponding updated certificate. This means that students submitting new ethics applications MUST complete and submit the new 2022 TCPS tutorial certificate. Even if your previous TCPS certificate is under two years old, you are required to submit the updated 2022 certificate of completion for any applications you submit going forward.
- Proposals which conduct research in the Jane and Finch community must be reviewed, approved and supported by the Jane-Finch Research Advisory Group. The principles here summarize the Jane Finch Community Research Partnership‘s expectations regarding respectful and ethical behaviour by researchers who work in the community so that all research on or involving members from the Jane and Finch community gives respect to the community and to community members’ perspectives, knowledge and values.
Resources
The following are community music programs in the Jane and Finch area. This list is not exhaustive.
The following are community music programs in the Greater Toronto Area sorted according to their focus on music from a specific location, nation and/or region.
The following are additional community music organizations in the GTA sorted by the communities that they serve.
For a more thorough cataloguing of community-engaged arts organizations throughout Canada, please refer to the following resources:
The following are archived webinars hosted by the Helen Carswell Chair which explore topics in community-engaged research in the arts, particularly as relevant to community music organizations.
What is Community Music?
with Dr. Phil Mullen
Inclusive Music Pedagogy
with Dr. Phil Mullen
Making Music with Children and Young People with Challenging Behaviour
with Dr. Phil Mullen
Role Modelling, Representation and Community Bands
with Helen Carswell researcher, Pratik Gandhi and panelists, Colin Clarke, Cait Nishimura and Bill Thomas
Cultural Connections through Music
with Helen Carswell researcher, Patty Chan
Community Music Organizations: Playing through a Pandemic
April 19th, 2021: this webinar features a panel of representatives from community music organizations in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and city of Toronto. Our discussion includes Wendy Jones of the Pan Fantasy Steelband, Lucas Marchand of RPSM- Jane & Finch, Andres Tucci Clarke of Sistema Toronto, and Bryna Berezowska of the Nai Choir. All four community music organizations adjusted their programming to be delivered online throughout the COVID pandemic. Panelists discuss both their challenges and solutions for virtual teaching, learning and engagement; they share their experiences as Toronto-based community music organizations and discuss strategies for continued social growth.
Helpful resources from this webinar:
- Midnight Music: “simplifying technology for music teachers”
- Kahoot!: “create a learning game or trivia quiz online on any topic, in any language”
- Whiteboard on Zoom: “share a whiteboard that you and other participants can annotate on (over Zoom)”
Building Pan African Repertoires to disrupt Anti-Black Racism in Music Education
March 10th, 2021: Our roundtable discussion on incorporating Black/pan-African music in teaching, program building, and performance features a panel of educators, performers and advocates for increased diversity and representation in music including Brandyn Lewis, Wendy Jones, Darren Hamilton, and Karen Cyrus.
Questions discussed in this webinar include: How do you incorporate Black music in your teaching, program building and/or performance? In what ways do you think we can collaborate on increasing Black representation as a local and global community of practice? What is the best way to integrate new repertoire with existing curriculum objectives? We are assuming that students might want to learn about their culture, is that always true?
Helpful resources from this webinar:
- The Chineke! Foundation: “to provide outstanding career opportunities to established and up-and-coming Black and ethnically diverse classical musicians in the UK and Europe”
- Buskaid: “helping young Black musicians in South African Townships”. Watch them perform here.
- The Sphinx Organization: “transforming lives through the power of diversity in the arts”
- Kanata: Contemporary Indigenous Artists and Their Music “a learning resource that will support teachers in bringing Indigenous voices, perspectives and music into classrooms.”
- “#BlackMusicMatters: Dismantling Anti-Black Racism in Music Education” by Darren Hamilton
The Helen Carswell research team provides professional development workshops and seminars on the following topics in community-engaged research in the arts:
Content / Programming
- Group Piano Programming
- Music Technology Programming
- Steelpan Programming
- Intergenerational Pan Programming
- Youth Storytelling through Media Arts
- Creative Music-Making Workshop for Wind Musicians
Pedagogy
- Positive Youth Development
- Trauma-Informed Pedagogy
- Engaging tweens in music summer camps
- Representation in curricula: The Funds of Knowledge Strategy
Equity and Diversity
- Serving Racialized Communities
- Pan-African Repertoires
- Repertoires and Representation
- Cultural Connections through Music
- Black artists in performing arts: curriculum guide and assessments (JK to secondary)
Community Contexts
- Jamming! Oral Histories, Food Justice and Music Making
- Environmental Scanning
- Asset mapping in Jane and Finch
- Data Mapping of Music Making
Contact us to host a Helen Carswell workshop or professional development session with one of our researchers.
To access our complete research archives, visit our YorkSpace library here.
Events
Upcoming Events:
Explore the Latest on the AMPD News & Events Page.
Past Events:
December 5, 2023
Join the Oral History, Food Justice and Music Making (OJAM) research team led by Nasra Mohamed and Honor Ford-Smith at the launch of our song Food is the Language and our community publication Grow it! The Story of the Black Farmers Collective. The launch will be held at 11:30 am at EUC Lounge on Tuesday Dec 5th. Below are the details of the event
July 31- August 4, 2023
Intermediate Music Campers from CMST created layers of original sounds as part of new Modular Synth workshops led by Helen Carswell researchers, Kurt Thumlert and Jason Nolan.
July 24-28, 2023
York Music welcomed students from Community Music Schools of Toronto to the Nick Nurse Foundation Summer Jazz and Groove Lab. Sponsored by the Helen Carswell Chair, CMST students had the opportunity to explore a range of musical styles including: Jazz, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel, Hip-Hop and the blending of musical traditions from around the world.
June 27, 2023
CMST teams up with Sun Ra Arkestra for a music making, collaborative event in Ada Slaight Hall @ Daniel’s Spectrum. Generously sponsored by The City of Toronto and The Daniels Corporation – this was a special free event reconnecting members from the legendary jazz ensemble the SUN RA ARKESTRA (see www.sunra.com) with CMST students (and alumni). The evening began with a workshop for CMST students and finished with a community feast.
June 16, 2023
Community Music Schools of Toronto at Jane and Finch hosted their End of the Year recital. Helen Carswell researchers Diane Kolin, Aida Khorsandi, Michaela Pnacekova and Michael Palumbo also presented their research as part of live performances with the students and interactive workshops post-concert. For more information and to RSVP, visit the CMST website here.
June 16-18, 2023
Helen Carswell researcher, Diane Kolin, presented as part of the Children, Youth and Performance Conference at the Young People’s Theatre in Toronto. Diane presented her research on “Accessibility in Music”.
May 5, 2023
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, and Director of Community Music Schools of Toronto, Richard Marsella, presented at the Inaugural Conference of the Music & Health Research Institute. As part of their paper, “Mapping the Relationship Between a University and Community Music School”, they discussed the origins of an endowed, community-university partnership and shared their unique perspectives in a discussion of the partnership’s challenges, successes and continued evolution. Their presentation reflected on how to build an ideal relationship between researchers and community partners that has sustainable alignment between research topics and research needs. They were also joined by Helen Carswell researcher, Diane Kolin, who shared her research project titled “A Discovery of Adaptive Instruments” as a case study from the first five years of the partnership’s existence.
April 20, 2023
Helen Carswell Chair, Dr. Amy Hillis, worked with the students at the Vernon Community Music School.
March 27, 2023
Helen Carswell Chair, Dr. Amy Hillis, led workshops with the intermediate and junior students of Sistema Toronto at Yorkwoods Public School in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood. Students created their own compositions together as a class using drawings, colours, and their own descriptive words which resulted in two world premieres!
March 25, 2023
Helen Carswell researcher, Diane Kolin, and Helen Carswell Chair, Dr. Amy Hillis, presented as part of York University’s Graduate Music Students’ Association’s Symposium, “Forward Motion”. Diane presented her research on “Disability in Music Education” and Amy discussed “Music Therapy verses Community Music” as part of a panel with music therapist, Melissa Tan. This event was open to the public and free to attend in person (on campus) or virtually. Complete details here.
February 15, 2023
Community Music Schools of Toronto hosted a virtual recital, celebrating Black Art & Culture.
February 7-9, 2023
The Helen Carswell Chair presented the 2nd annual Community Music Symposium titled “New (Afro)beats!”. We were thrilled to welcome our keynote speaker, Silvastone. Workshops and presentations took place both at York University and in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood:
Feb. 7 & 8: Song-writing and recording workshops with youth in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and members of Tired of Talking.
Feb. 8 @ 1-2pm @ York University (ACE 373): Silvastone shared his story and led a discussion on how Afrobeats can be a vehicle for social change and community empowerment. He talked through his personal journey and how his distinct Afrofusion genre represents this journey and has grown with his experiences. Silvastone spoke about how his lived experiences have developed his desire to promote positivity within music and how he uses this to empower young people from underrepresented backgrounds in his local community.
Feb. 9 @ 10-11am (ACE 245): “Music in the Community” explored Silvastone’s work in the community, including his White Hut Studios, and issues with funding and accessibility. Silvastone led an interactive discussion with York students on how to make music making accessible to people of diverse backgrounds and experiences.
January 28, 2023
Community Music Schools of Toronto at Jane and Finch presented their winter student recital!
November 15, 2022
Dr. Allan Carswell was awarded the 2022 Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year by the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Toronto (AFP). The Helen Carswell Chair in Community-Engaged Research in the Arts, the Allan Carswell Chair for the Public Understanding of Astronomy, the Helen Carswell Research Chair in Dementia Care and a spokesperson for the Helen Carswell STEAM Program and the Carswell Scholars Program in Lassonde were honoured to attend this momentous event.
November 4, 2022
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, presented at Elevate, the 2022 Conference presented by the Ontario Music Educators’ Association. She presented a paper titled “Contemporary Composers in Community Music: The Power to Give a ‘voice’ to Marginalized Peoples and Deepen a Community’s Identity”.
October 22, 2022
Students from Community Music Schools of Toronto at Jane and Finch had a field trip to the Cinema and Media Arts department at York University’s School of Arts, Media, Performance and Design. They had the chance to watch the videos they created with Helen Carswell researchers, Jamie Whitecrow, Sharon Hayashi and Barbara Evans. Learn more about their creative video project titled “Programming youth media arts via sight, sound, and storytelling modules” here.
October 29, 2022
Helen Carswell researcher, Pratik Gandhi, led a collaborative event with elementary and secondary students from the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and York Music. Students from Community Music Schools of Toronto and other secondary schools around the GTA had the opportunity to make music creatively alongside York Music students with guest composers, Kevin Day and Cait Nishimura. This event was free for all participants and took place from 1-4pm on York University’s campus at 83 York Blvd.
July 17 & 20, 2022
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, presented at the 35th International Society for Music Education (ISME) World Conference. Amy presented a lecture-recital titled “Identity in Music of Marginalized Communities” and a paper titled “Contemporary Composers in Community Music: The Power to Give a ‘voice’ to Marginalized Peoples and Deepen a Community’s Identity”.
July 12, 2022
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, visited the summer camp titled “Music Explorers” at PEACH led by Community Music Schools of Toronto at Jane Finch. As part of her visit, she gave an interactive, kid-friendly concert for the campers to explore the violin.
June 26, 2022
Helen Carswell researcher, Patty Chan, presented a snapshot of her Helen Carswell project titled “Cultural Connections through Music” as part of the Children, Youth and Performance Conference. The presentation was delivered in an online format (a complete schedule can be found here.) This conference is held in partnership with York University.
June 25, 2022
The Toronto Chinese Orchestra under the direction of Helen Carswell researcher, Patty Chan, presented a concert in collaboration with students from the Community Music Schools of Toronto. This concert began at 8pm at the PC Ho Theatre in the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Toronto.
June 24, 2022
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, led a panel discussion with CMST Director, Richard Marsella, and Jane & Finch Program Coordinator, Vanessa Chase, as part of the Children, Youth and Performance Conference. The discussion was delivered in an online format (a complete schedule can be found here.) This conference is held in partnership with York University and Young People’s Theatre in Toronto.
Helen Carswell researcher, Sophie Bisson, also presented a snapshot of her Helen Carswell project titled “Black Opera: A Showcase of Black Opera Companies, Works, and Artists” at 11am EST.
Twitter: @CYPConference
Facebook: facebook.com/CYPConference
June 2, 2022
Helen Carswell researcher, Sophie Bisson, presented a paper at the MUSCAN annual conference titled “Black Opera: A Showcase of Black Opera Companies, Works, and Artists”. Session info and complete schedule here.
May 31, 2022
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, presented at the MUSCAN annual conference hosted by the Canadian University Music Society. Amy presented a lecture-recital titled “Contemporary Compositions and their Power to Give a ‘voice’ to Marginalized Peoples”. Session information and complete schedule here.
May 27-29, 2022
Presented by Laurier University in collaboration with the Helen Carswell Chair, the Mel Brown Festival and Symposium celebrates Black heritage in the Waterloo Region and focuses on the legacy of epic blues musician Mel Brown. This multi-event project includes public events took place in Waterloo and Kitchener, Ontario including performances by York Music’s Oscar Peterson Jazzmobile. The project seeks to examine historical and contemporary systemic racism, the colonialist curriculum within academic institutions. In recognizing the inequities for students of Black and marginalized communities, the symposium explored pathways towards equity for entry into higher learning institutions where the music of their cultures, their achievements, and their creativity are recognized, honoured and celebrated. The festival seeks to spotlight and create a historical understanding and a working knowledge of various genres of Black music through live music presented by Black artists, musicians and spoken word. The festival showcased local, regional, and international Black artists who traditionally are underrepresented in concert venues in southern Ontario.
The Mel Brown Festival and Symposium is funded in part by a SSHRC Connection Grant.
March 26, 2022
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, gave an interactive, kid-friendly concert for children in palliative care with pianist, Meagan Milatz as part of Ottawa Chamberfest’s Palliative Care initiative. This initiative is presented in partnership with the Roger Neilson House, a hospice for pediatric palliative care on the grounds of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO). This program shares music with children at the House on a bi-weekly basis.
March 13, 2022
Helen Carswell researcher, Sophie Bisson, presented her project titled “Black Opera: A Showcase of Black Opera Companies, Works, and Artists” at the University of Toronto’s Graduate Music Conference. Sophie kicked off the “Blackness in Music” session from 2:45-4:15pm EST. View the full program here and find the Zoom links here. All are welcome to attend virtually, free of charge.
February 17 & 18, 2022
The inaugural Helen Carswell Community Music Symposium: “Inclusive Music-Making with Creative Ensembles”
featuring members of the Helen Carswell Research Team and keynote speaker, Dr. Phil Mullen. Read more about the symposium here.
When: Thursday, February 17 and Friday, February 18, 2022 (detailed schedule below)
Where: Virtually via ZOOM. For Day 1 (Feb. 17) sessions, register here. For Day 2 (Feb. 18), see “Programme Day 2” below for session-specific ZOOM registration links.
Presentation and Workshop topics include:
- “What is Community Music?”
- “Inclusive Music-Making and Creative Starting Points”
- “Role Modelling, Representation and Community Bands”
- “Cultural Connections through Music”
- “Creative Ensemble Workshop”
- “Inclusive Music Pedagogy”
- “Strategic Approaches to Inclusion and Community Music”
- “Making Music with Children and Young People with Challenging Behaviour”
- Virtual performances by students from the Regent Park School of Music (RPSM)
Symposium: What and Who?
Symposium Programme Day 1 (Thursday, Feb. 17)
Symposium Programme Day 2 (Friday, Feb. 18)
January 29, 2022
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, gave an Adapted Concert with pianist, Meagan Milatz as part of Ottawa Chamberfest’s Adapted Concert series. Presented in partnership with the Lotus Centre for Special Music Education, these concerts are inclusive, accessible and sensory-friendly. They welcome children and people with sensory sensitivities, on the autism spectrum, or with other considerations that would benefit from visual aids, storytelling and a safe community space.
January 27-29, 2022
Helen Carswell Research Assistant, John Drinkwater, attended SphinxConnect 2022, a conference hosted by the Sphinx Organization in celebration of their 25th anniversary. The longest-standing convening dedicated to diversity and inclusion in classical music, this conference welcomed musicians, industry leaders, educators, funders, diversity advocates, and administrators with 70+ speakers participating in over 20 sessions designed to inspire and ignite action and spark collaboration. Check out one of their sessions titled “Dare to Impact” below. Their full video library is here.
October 28, 2021
Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus facilitated a workshop with a team from York Region District School Board titled “Collaborating for Culture Change: Working Together in Service of Canadian Students of African Descent” at their Virtual Equity Symposium, 2021.
October 22, 2021
Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus, and Munjeera Jefford presented a workshop at the Newfoundland and Labrador Music Educator’s Association (NLMEA) Resonate 2021 conference.
July 7, 2021
Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus, and the Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, presented at the 2021 Virtual PASMAE-ISME conference.
July 5, 2021
Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus, and Munjeera Jefford presented at the 2021 Virtual PASMAE-ISME conference.
June 25, 2021
Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus, and a team from Regent Park School of Music presented at the Children, Youth and Performance Conference. The conference schedule can be found here and tickets for the conference can be purchased here.
June 3, 2021
Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus, and former Helen Carswell Fellow, Karen Burke, presented at the 2021 MUSCAN conference.
May 16, 2021
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, joined The Hammer Band‘s Virtual Party. Violin students from the Jane and Finch neighbourhood performed and learned new musical skills together with teachers Moshe Hammer, Ross Inglis, Praise Lam and Brian Baty.
May 6, 2021
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, led a workshop with Sistema Toronto students about living, Canadian composers of colour which included her performance of Moto Perpetuo by Dinuk Wijeratne. Amy also worked with the Sistema Honours Orchestra string students on their arrangement of Piazzolla’s Libertango.
April 19, 2021
“Community Music Organizations: Playing through a Pandemic”
Hosted by York University’s Helen Carswell Chair in Community-Engaged Research in the Arts, this public webinar featured a panel of representatives from community music organizations in the Jane and Finch neighbourhood and city of Toronto. Our panel included Wendy Jones of the Pan Fantasy Steelband, Lucas Marchand of RPSM- Jane & Finch, Andres Tucci Clarke of Sistema Toronto, and Bryna Berezowska of the Nai Choir. All four community music organizations have adjusted their programming to be delivered online throughout the pandemic. Panelists discussed both their challenges and solutions for virtual teaching, learning and engagement. This was an opportunity for Toronto-based community music organizations to share their experiences and to discuss strategies for continued social growth. Access an archived recording of the discussion here or visit our webinar page here.
March 22, 2021
Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, gave a virtual presentation on BIPOC composers followed by a string masterclass for the students of Strong Harbour Strings, a community music organization based in St. John’s, Newfoundland.
March 22, 2021
Helen Carswell researcher, Munjeera Jefford, presented a second, more individualized Professional Development session to RPSM faculty titled “Incorporating the Funds of Knowledge Strategy into Lesson Plans”.
March 16, 2021
Dr. Honor Ford-Smith, a Helen Carswell researcher, presented “Carrying Food, Music & Memory” at Miijim: Food as Relations, a series of conversations presenting Indigenous, Black and People of Colour food scholars, growers, artists and advocates who gathered virtually across Canada.
This conversation brought together professor and author Honor Ford Smith, musician Beny Esguerra, and growers Jacqueline Dwyer and Noel Livingston, founders of Black Farmers and Food Growers Collective, to explore how intergenerational knowledge is immersed in food cultures and carried across borders to Toronto. Through dialogue and improvised performances, the speakers interwove stories with the multiplicity of rhythms found in Toronto’s diverse communities.
What labours of memory sustain the nurturing and transformation of this knowledge across generations? What forces attempt to destroy their significance and with what consequences? This session launched the new project “Oral Histories, Music-making and Food Justice,” an initiative that aims to recover local oral histories of food cultures through contemporary musical and sound explorations, in search of caring acts of intergenerational transfer, collaboration and food justice.
Access an archived video recording of event here.
March 10, 2021
“Building Pan African Repertoires to disrupt Anti-Black Racism in Music Education”
Hosted by York University’s Helen Carswell Chair in Community-Engaged Research in the Arts, this public webinar featured a panel of educators, performers and advocates for increased diversity and representation in music. This roundtable discussed incorporating Black/pan-African music in teaching, program building, and performance. Our esteemed panelists included Brandyn Lewis, Wendy Jones, Darren Hamilton, and Karen Cyrus.
Questions for the discussion included: How do you incorporate Black music in your teaching, program building and/or performance? In what ways do you think we can collaborate on increasing Black representation as a local and global community of practice? What is the best way to integrate new repertoire with existing curriculum objectives? We are assuming that students might want to learn about their culture, is that always true?
Access an archived recording of the discussion here or visit our webinar page here.
February 22, 2021
Helen Carswell researcher, Munjeera Jefford, presented a Professional Development session to RPSM faculty titled “How to use the Funds of Knowledge Strategy for Music Education”.
December 2, 2020
The Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus, gave a presentation on “Pan-African repertoires” to a working group on GTA anti-racism in music classrooms.
August 6, 2020
The Helen Carswell Chair, Amy Hillis, joined RPSM’s Virtual Open Mic. Access RPSM’s complete Virtual Open Mic YouTube playlist here.
July 7, 2020
The Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus, gave a presentation on “Community Music School Structures” to a delegation from Northern Caribbean University.
December 5, 2019
On December 5, members of Uzo Anucha’s research team from YouthREX presented a webinar titled “Striking A Chord: The Power of Music Programs for Young People.” Helen Carswell Chair, Karen Burke, along with RPSM staff and a former student from RPSM, spoke about the impact of RPSM’s music programs. This webinar also included presenters from other community music programs who gave rich accounts of the impact of their programs. There is much to learn about the impact of community music program by watching this webinar; it may be accessed here.
November 8, 2019
“Black Music in music education: repertoire, representation and courageous conversations”
Karen Cyrus, Karen Burke and Salah Wilson presented an academic research poster titled “Black music repertoire and representation” at a conference hosted by the Ontario Music Educators Association (OMEA). Access a recording and poster of the presentation here. A copy of the presentation’s abstract can be found here.
September 19, 2019
Members of the Carswell Research Team and RPSM met with members of Research Impact Canada at Daniels Spectrum in Regent Park, Toronto. They discussed and answered questions on the Helen Carswell research team experience.
September 3-6, 2019
RPSM Professional Development Workshops: Members of the Helen Carswell Research Team facilitated sessions at RPSM’s professional development workshops. They provided valuable information to help RPSM teachers improve their teaching practice. The workshops presented included:
- September 3: “Trauma-informed pedagogy” by Cathy Pavlik; Cathy discussed how to identify signs and symptoms of trauma in children at different development stages.
- September 5: Positive Youth Development by Uzo Anucha and Tanika McLeod; Members of Uzo’s research team from YouthREX presented a 2-hour workshop on critical youth engagement. They explored the benefits and barriers to equitable youth engagement, tools to assess and support youth-adult partnerships, as well as “practice-able” ways to facilitate equitable space for authentic youth engagement.
- September 6: “Multilevel group-piano classes:: management, methods, and materials.” by Karen Cyrus; Karen discussed tools and strategies to navigate three challenges of teaching multilevel piano classes.
- “Taiko” by Mila Mendez
August 22, 2019
The Helen Carswell research team of Karen Cyrus, Karen Burke, Evelyn Amponsah and Sam Tecle presented a paper titled “Equity through community music programming: barriers and bridges to resources and representation,” at FESI 2019 Dismantling the Barriers to Education hosted by York University. The abstract for this paper can be found here.
July 8 – August 9, 2019
York University hosted the RPSM Summer camp.
April 5, 2019
RPSM and Helen Carswell executive members participated in a panel at CRAM titled “Renegade Research: Partnering with Communities for Change.” CRAM brought the city’s universities together for one night when every university in Toronto opened their doors and “unleashed” novel research and big ideas to the public. The goal of the event was to bridge the gap between research and the public by inviting people from around the GTA to participate in a free night of new ideas. The first learning festival of its kind in Canada, CRAM was packed with innovative, interactive and entertaining events for the keen and curious. The website for the CRAM event is here. Read the report of this event here.
March 18, 2019
Helen Carswell Research Associate, Karen Cyrus, presented a PD workshop at RPSM titled Black history and related repertoire.
February 6, 2019
The RPSM Community steel pan program began at Monsignor Fraser. Read more about this Helen Carswell project led by Salah Wilson here.
November 20, 2018
The Helen Carswell Chair hosted ‘Brown Bag’ Sessions at the TD-York Community Engagement Centre including the following presentations:
- Cathy Pavlik-Griffen: “Trauma-informed pedagogy”
- Joel Ong: “Data mapping of location and navigation of the transportation systems to support possible ‘hot spots’–intersects for music making”
Read the report from this Brown Bag session here.
October 31, 2018
The Helen Carswell Chair hosted ‘Brown Bag’ Sessions at the TD-York Community Engagement Centre including the following presentations:
- Salah Wilson: “Steelpan programming”
- Evelyn Amponsah/Eden Abraham: “Best practices for serving racialized communities”
Read the report on this Brown Bag session here.
September 2018
Professional Development Workshop given at RPSM by Cathy Pavlik on “Trauma-informed pedagogy”
July – August, 2018
York University hosted the RPSM Summer camp.
November 4-5, 2017
The Helen Carswell Chair led a Youth Gospel Choir workshop at Daniels Spectrum, a community cultural hub in Toronto’s Regent Park neighbourhood.
August 24, 2017
Karen Burke, Richard Marsella, Karen Cyrus gave a workshop titled “Equity through Community Music Programming: Barriers and Bridges to Resources and Representation” at the Faculty of Education Summer Institute (FESI). Read about the workshop here.
Before an audience of passionate educators, and celebrated with three stellar music performances, York University Professor Karen Burke was announced as the inaugural Fellow for the Helen Carswell Chair in Community Engaged Research in the Arts. Read about the event and performances here.
July 17- August 18, 2017
York University’s Department of Music at the School of AMPD hosted the RPSM Summer camp. This included 4 summer programs (9 am to 4pm) over 2 weeks titled “Music Technology,” “Feeling the Beat,” “Build a Band” and “Glee.”
May 3, 2017
A collaborative performance was given by the RPSM Choir, members of the York University Gospel Choir (YUGC) and Jully Black for an RPSM Gala event
November 16, 2016
York professor emeritus Dr. Allan Carswell announced a $2 million gift from the Carswell Family Foundation to establish the Helen Carswell Chair, a new research chair in “Community-Engaged Research in the Arts” as part of a partnership between York University’s School of AMPD and the Regent Park School of Music (RPSM). In addition to the new research chair, the funding will support RPSM’s collaboration with the Jane-Finch community and a new partnership between York and the RPSM to strengthen community music programming, research and impact. Read more about the announcement here. At the official announcement of the Carswell endowment, performances were given by the RPSM choir with Liberty Silver at including a performance of the song “Grateful” written by Karen Burke.