ABSTRACT
On a recent Saturday on an empty lot in the West End of Providence, young people, families, neighborhood business owners, and concert-goers gathered for a musical event that grew out of a two-year research and oral history project about the history of the land where Community MusicWorks plans to build its future building. In a festival-like atmosphere, a Native American drumming group performed and offered an opening blessing, a Dominican spoken word artist performed a poem about his experience growing up in the neighborhood and witnessing gentrification and change, an elder from the Hmong Church, dressed in traditional costume, sang a mournful song about a bride’s sorrow leaving home to join a new family. Community MusicWorks is premised on the idea that musicians can make work in the world as performers and educators rooted in the life of a community and woven into the fabric of a community’s daily rituals.
