25 Years of Changing Lives

Resonating Through Time

Through Music

MANY THANKS to our 2016

supporters and partners

and to each and every one of our donors over the past 25 years.

Music breaks down all barriers, until all that is left is the truth of who we are.“ “- Kasia Bielak-Hoops, CMSa2 Executive Director

Juliana Student at University of Cincinnati - Conservatory of Music

“Our respect for each other as people and as

musicians grew. “Patselas

My experience as an intern with the Brandenburg Project at the CMSa2 was so much more enriching than I expected. I gained an understanding of baroque music that I couldn’t have gotten anywhere else, including having the opportunity to work with world-class baroque artists and play authentic period instruments. “Baroque” now has a completely different meaning than “classical” for me, and this understanding affects all the music I play. However, I find the leadership experience to be the most valuable part of the Brandenburg Project.

When we came together for our first rehearsals in the fall of 2014, I saw that we all felt awkward and out of place. We didn’t have much experience playing in the baroque style, came from different schools, had an age span of 10 years between the youngest and oldest members, and had very different musical abilities.

Everyone expected it to be like a traditional school orchestra, where the teacher is the head of the class, but suddenly found that they were being asked questions like, “Do you think there should be a crescendo or decrescendo here?” and “Why did you think we should put the accent on the up beats?”

As the year progressed, the group learned to have musical opinions, and how to express them in a group. We learned to work together, instead of saying “I don’t know” and letting someone else figure it out. Deep down, our respect for each other as people and as musicians grew. We learned to automatically switch our minds to an open, positive mindset when we walked in the door for rehearsal.

After two years with the group, not only did I develop a life-long love for Baroque music, I also realized how much I enjoyed the process of preparing for a performance and that I wanted to be an even better musical leader. The experience ultimately influenced my decision to study music education in college and my goal is to continue collaborating and sharing music in the years to come.

Lois Andres

Violist in CMSa2’s New Horizons Senior Strings Orchestra

I’m playing better than I ever have in my life. I studied violin in college in the 50’s and I remember playing in the college orchestra that had a conductor who cursed and swore at us. After that terrible experience, I put my violin away and didn’t touch it for years. Then I began playing with New Horizons Senior Strings Orchestra in early spring of 2013. Although I had played the violin, I had just started learning to play the viola. I taught myself to read the viola clef and I was able to get the support I needed to accomplish this by playing in New Horizons.

After all the practicing and we start to really sound good, there is a feeling of exhilaration - you feel it in your chest, you feel it in your head - all those harmonies coming together.

It’s very important - to all of us. We’ve got a cello player now in her 80’s, and another who’s 85 or 87 and plays viola in the group - she studies piano at U of M and has a house full of old instruments, like viola da

“It’s joy - the music brings joy! “gamba’s and such - sometimes I can barely hear her but if I listen to her, I learn something, she’s always on the beat and in tune. I feel like I’m making a contribution to this peaceful, beautiful harmony. And we all feel gratified - like we are each a cog in the wheel - part of the whole.

It has been inspirational, we’re doing such wonderful music and I have learned so much musically from our director. I never thought I would have as much fun as a retiree. It’s joy --- the music brings joy!

New Horizons Senior Strings Orchestra takes a bow!

My grade in band class went from an E to an A, because this program helped me believe in myself.

- Eben Wright, 15, trombonist & scholarship student

The power of music can save lives, heal broken hearts, and

change history. Yet what is music but the beat of your heart? The song within us

that speaks of our love, our losses, fears, hopes, and

dreams. Music is the wings of dreams.... dreams so many of us see as just that; fantasies.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Give us the power to fly...

change our lives and give us hope...

- Ivan Flores, 20, violinist & scholarship alum, reflecting on

the question “What is art?”

...For people of all ages and backgrounds...

““ ““

“Music means pretty much everything….I want to be Michael Jackson big and be known around the world…..usually, when I get in that moment in my playing where my thoughts are just gone, music kinda just blow out of the top of [my horn].

- Clarence Collins, 16, trumpet player & scholarship student“

Cello is one of the only constants in my life. It’s something that I know I can always go to and it’s a way I can express myself……Every chord has meaning, and every note sounds like it should be, and you can kind of tie that into life in that every phrase is just another thing and every thing happens for a reason.

- Alex Linders, 16, cellist & scholarship student

We learned that we need to not be nervous – to be with braveness.

I don’t know what I’d do without music. It’s everything really. And without the experiences I have received at CMSa2 I don’t think I would be playing today.

– Nadia, 17, violinist & scholarship student

- Keli Pina De Jesus, 5, Dreamweaver’s Summer Theater camper & scholarship student

““

““

“ “

Colleen Wang

Violin Faculty at Qatar Music Academy

“It felt like a second home

outside of school. “

I was at CMSa2 from age 7-11...that would be 1996 to 2000 I believe. I was in the beginning string orchestra the year it was named Sterling String Orchestra (I still remember the naming contest!) and then I was in the advanced Youth Symphony Orchestra (YSO) for two years. I loved my time at CMSa2 (then the Ann Arbor School

for the Performing Arts) and it made a lasting impact on me. It felt like a second home outside of school.

Playing in an orchestra made music much more fun, and we got to do amazing things like travel to Chicago! I was a young one in YSO so I think being around older participants helped me mature a lot faster. YSO helped me understand the importance of reaping the benefits of hard work while also having fun. I made a lot of friends who either also went on to study music or who developed a life-long love of the arts. This has made a difference in my life in that I felt a connection with other people out there who shared my love for music.

The orchestra program made such a lasting impression on me and the school itself is so welcoming in professional development for alumni, that CMSa2 was the first teaching opportunity I had as a high school student and also as a post-grad. That experience was pivotal in developing my passion as teacher. I went on as a teaching fellow at Umoja Music Shool in Arusha, Tanzania and I'm currently teaching violin full-time at the Qatar Music Academy (QMA) in Doha, Qatar. QMA is the premiere music school in all of Qatar; last year we had collaborations with St. Regis, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, Ajyal Film Festivals, European Jazz Festival and the Greek Embassy. I have 27 private students, a beginning string ensemble and a new music exploration program for 6 year old children. It's a wonderful school to be working at!

Colleen encouraging a student at a CMSa2 recital.

Jared Saltiel

Professional Musician based in Brooklyn, NY

CMSa2 (then the Ann Arbor School for the Performing Arts) had a huge impact on my life. Before I joined their jazz program, I had certainly been exposed to a wide variety of musical

styles, and my piano lessons had veered toward jazz rather than classical music, but when I started playing drums under the guidance of Pete Siers, jazz was just a curiosity and an experiment. I had no idea how deep of a study this was going to be, because I hadn’t yet been exposed to such profound notions of creativity and performance. My instructors at CMSa2 - Pete, Paul Finkbeiner, and Bryan DiBlassio (it was Smith in those days!) - weren’t just fantastic teachers and incredibly talented musicians, they

really embodied the core values of discipline, exploration, and genuine expression that still drive me today, in music and beyond. They saw talents in me that I wasn’t yet aware of, and they knew how to push me to uncover my own creativity, to approach music with true feeling, and they steered me away from empty technical exercises and showy affect. Even if I wasn’t able to deliver on those noble principles of taste and restraint as a 13-year-old, I never forgot what they showed me.

“My instructors at CMSa2 really embodied the core values of discipline, exploration, and

genuine expression that still drive me today, in music and beyond. “

One experience that’s coming to mind is the year I played in a Latin Jazz combo. Up until that point, I had been entirely focused on drums, but when Pete put together this group, I seriously expanded my horizons. On percussion, suddenly my role was dramatically simplified, and I was relegated to much more structured and traditional patterns...yet if anything this was more difficult than the improvised freedoms I was used to as a drummer. The challenge was to disappear into the whole, contribute to the overall feel, and play my part with a sense of solidity and genuine joy. We also got to yell out guttural “Huh!” sounds in the traditional Cuban style, so that was fun. And my ability to properly rock, let’s say, a guiro has actually been an extremely useful skill as a music producer...who would’ve thought!

I’ve never stopped playing music since I first picked up piano at age 6. I now find myself living in New York working as a music producer, multi-instrumentalist and arranger. I’m also a singer-songwriter with a few albums under my belt, and I’ve recently branched out into the musical theatre realm, co-writing my first musical with an old friend who is also a veteran of Ann Arbor youth jazz programs. I’ve played music of all types, including rock, folk and experimental projects that defy description, but I’ve always drawn on those formative years at CMSa2 and my calling card as a composer and performer has always been my background in, and understanding of jazz. I’ll always be thankful to my amazing instructors for giving me that foundation - It’s hard to imagine what my life would be like without CMSa2.

Our mission is to cultivate creativity, self-expression and the joy of

music for people of all ages and backgrounds through collaborative

musical adventures.

CMSa2.org | info@aa-spa.org | 734-213-2000

We envision a community of compassionate, courageous people

creatively building a more harmonious world together.