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(Back to main registration page for the 2023 PMN Fall Hybrid Convergence)

Workshop Descriptions

Saturday, February 11, 2023, Workshop #1:

11:30 AM - 1:00 PM (ET)

1A) How & Why Activist Ensembles Organize, Play & Sing

Paul Robeson Room–Lower Level

   In this participatory workshop, representatives from different activist music ensembles will share how they organize – both internally and with allies in the movement – to create performances that move the hearts and souls of participants in rallies, marches, and other social justice events.  Through a collaborative exchange, we’ll learn how to:

• Run effective rehearsals.
• Grow our ensemble.
• Select and write music that encourages participation and engagement with key issues.
• Create performances that develop political education for audiences and singers alike.

Co-Facilitators:

• Gale Juhkol: Rude Mechanical Orchestra
• Savitri D: Stop Shopping Choir

Additional Panelists:

• Luci Murphy, and Melissa Strova-Valencia: Black Workers Center Chorus, Washington, DC
• Josh Feintuch: Sing in Solidarity 
• Cara Schwarz: NYC Labor Chorus
• Adele Rolider: The Raging Grannies

1B) New Songs, Old Styles

Claudia Jones Room –Mezzanine

Let’s share newer songs that are consciously written in older traditional styles, such as Appalachian, maritime, Dixieland, ragtime, Delta blues, Gospel, or country swing, to name just a few. In Ireland and Great Britain this is known as “writing in the tradition,” and it is something that political singer-songwriters on both sides of the Atlantic have done. Think of the SNCC Freedom Singers, Tommy Sands, Peggy Seeger, Ewan MacColl, Jean Ritchie, Big Bill Broonzy, Huddie Ledbetter, and Woody Guthrie, as well as many PMN members.

Facilitator: Steve Suffet is best described as an old fashioned folksinger in the People’s Music tradition. He is a member of the People’s Voice Cafe Collective in New York City and a long-time member of PMN. Except when covid-19 made international travel problematic, Steve has been performing regularly in folk clubs throughout the United Kingdom since 2008, sometimes taking another PMN member with him on tour.

1C) Harnessing the Combined Power of Spoken Word, Poetry and Music

Media Lab –Lower Level

In this participatory workshop we explore the relationship between spoken word, poetry and music. Together, we will create musical backgrounds to spoken word, and set music to poetry. As part of the workshop, the presenters will also perform examples of these art forms both in English and Spanish.  Among the questions addressed:

• How are spoken word and poetry musical?
• How do poetry and spoken word overlap and how do they differ?
• How can music be used to give more power to words?

We will rely on our collective wisdom to answer these questions. Come prepared to make music and to be creative together!

Facilitators:

• Ruben Gonzalez
• Harriet Chapple
• Mario Cancel

1D) World Music Rhythms

Claudia Jones Room–Mezzanine

In this workshop, Members of The Scooches will explore how world music rhythms & sonorities in our music can be a step toward community that fully includes diverse cultures. We will explore scales, harmony, rhythms, polyrhythms, and hemiola from India, Brazil, Latin America,

Gullah-Geechee, West Africa as well as Ostinato patterns, clave, and call and response. How can we incorporate these devices from other cultures into our own original music in ways that show respect to the people who created them? We will discuss how to position ourselves as a world community of diverse artists. Participants are welcome to bring samples of their own original music that incorporates world music.

• The Scooches (Nick Russo, Betina Hershey, and Miles Griffith): With their acclaimed multicultural album Get Us Out Of Fearland (#2 Album on the Folk Alliance International Chart) and a new release, Lift You Up (coming spring 2023), The Scooches bring their cultural influences from the Caribbean, Suriname, Gullah, and North America together into an immersive experience that draws our audiences’ minds and ears into the diversity of sound, culture, and community!

1.Z.1) If I had a Song

Zoom Room

Songwriters in People's Music Network strive to write songs that wake people up, challenge the status quo, and reach people’s hearts and minds.  We don't believe it takes larger-than-life talent to create powerful songs.  Rather, the craft of songwriting involves skill, practice, hard work, and the willingness to listen to how our words and music land with others.

Through our monthly “If I Had a Song” workshops, PMN is building a loving and supportive creative community that provides songwriters with the honest listening we need.  Participants present a song-in-progress to like-minded songwriters, and then receive constructive feedback. We’d love to have you join us.

This is NOT a song swap.  We share original material and always benefit from the insightful feedback and suggestions that we receive from fellow songwriters.  We learn to listen non-defensively.  You are responsible for your own song, and can decide what – if any – of the feedback you choose to use.

Come join us at the convergence for a sample of our monthly online sessions!  Come to observe and/or present and get feedback on a song you’re working on.  We will get into break-out rooms, and will likely have time to work through 2-3 songs per breakout room.

Facilitators: Eric Law, Steve Deasy

1.Z.2) Young Artists in the Movement  

Zoom Room

Jane Sapp is an educator and mentor with decades of experience supporting the artistic development of young artists.  This panel workshop will feature a number of young artists involved with the Encampment for Citizenship, a youth program for which Ms. Sapp is the Education Director.  Arts and culture is at the heart of the Encampment, and these panelists are all involved in using music and spoken word for social change.

Panelists:

• Jane Sapp: (she/her) is a powerful and highly regarded performer, songwriter, recording artist and educator who for many years has engaged with disenfranchised urban and rural communities in the United States and around the world.  She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and is a member of the PMN Steering Committee.  www.janesapp.org
• Charlie King (Moderator (he/him) is a musical storyteller, prolific songwriter, and political satirist.  He sings and writes passionately about the extraordinary lives of ordinary people.  A founding member of People's Music Network, Charlie currently serves on the PMN Steering Committee. He lives in Shelburne Falls, Mass. www.charlieking.org
• X (xejeia freelon). (they/them) is a filmmaker, writer, and community organizer.  X was born in the Mississippi Delta and raised in Texas, then earned their Bachelor's degree in Multi-Media Studies and Psychoanalytics from Hampshire College.  X is the Executive Director of Lucie's Place, a housing program and community center for trans and queer people in Little Rock, Arkansas.  X's artwork focuses on pleasure, grief and sacral experiences, and explores the ways black folks express their sense of selfhood, identity, gender, sensuality, and (non)being.
• Jesus Salcido Chavarría (he/him) aka "MC Salcidation" is the current Program Director of the Encampment for Citizenship (EFC), an educator, and a bilingual hip hop recording artist.  Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, he came to the US at age 7. He fell in love with hip hop music at 12, and started writing his own rhymes at 15. Seven years later, he released his first studio album "Mariposas," which focuses on the immigrant experience in the U.S.  He lives in Austin, TX and is working on his 2nd album, "Chabochi."
• Hausson Byrd (he/him)  Hausson Byrd is a Poet, Organizer, Author, and Rapper from Raleigh NC. He is a Graduate of NCAT, and a Relapsing Book Addict trying his absolute hardest to make his village proud. Starting out as a spoken word artist, He has been expanding his artistry to include poetry, music, emceeing, event curation, networking and community building. A plaque above the dining room at his mother’s old house read “Never, Ever, Ever Give Up”, and so he never has and he never will. He hopes to inspire you to do the same.https://ahbpoetrycom.wordpress.com
• Michael Carter (he/him) is an educator, community leader, musician, choral director  and cultural worker.  He currently serves as the principal at KIPP OKC College Prep.  Prior to that, was an elementary school principal in Tulsa, OK and served as the Program Director for a national social justice organization, the Encampment for Citizenship.  He is currently working on a Doctorate in Education at the University of Oklahoma. When Michael is not at school, he may be found at the piano, leading choirs throughout the Oklahoma City metropolitan area.

Saturday, February 11, 2023, Workshop #2:

2:15 PM - 3:45 PM (ET)

2A) Super Ensemble Rehearsal & Song Share

Violeta Parra Stage – Ground Floor

This workshop is open to all musicians and singers! We will create a “PMN Super Ensemble” composed of members of the Black Workers Centers Chorus, Rude Mechanical Orchestra, Sing In Solidarity, the NYC Labor Chorus, the DC Labor Chorus, the Stop Shopping Choir, and other folks wanting to join. We have asked these ensembles to work together to teach the songs they perform on the street to the other groups. Together, we will raise our voices and instruments to form one big sound!  

Featured Ensembles:

• Black Workers Center Chorus
• DC Labor Chorus
• Sing in Solidarity 
• Rude Mechanical Orchestra 
• NYC Labor Chorus
• Stop Shopping Choir

• The Raging Grannies

2B) Organizing Musicians: The Labor Movement’s Next Unexpected Battle

Paul Robeson Room – Lower Level

Can independent musicians be organized?  Is there a place within the labor movement for them?  Is there a place for members of the American Federation of Musicians in the People’s Music Network?

This panel discussion, a first for the People’s Music Network, will tackle these pressing questions from historical and philosophical viewpoints as well as within current real-time campaigns and actions.  A new generation of activists unafraid to speak out for workers’ rights in the language of radicalism is reinvigorating the Labor Movement across the country: the union drives by staff of Starbucks and Amazon not only speak back to “the boss” but the corporate power elite as a whole.  The impact within the houses of the AFL-CIO has been great.  Independent musicians have felt the bite of joblessness following the worst of the pandemic, particularly in the forum of clubs, bars, galleries and still smaller spaces, making organizing an urgent need.  Our discussion will encompass all of this as well as seek to overcome past organizing efforts that were riddled with racism, sexism, homophobia and cronyism.  New organizing for musicians must be universal in scope and vision.

Panelists:

• John Pietaro (AFM, Local 802, NYC): Writer and musician who has worked in the labor movement for 21 years.   As a percussionist, spoken word artist and multi-instrumentalist, Pietaro has frequently performed within the downtown experimental arts scene as well as in the realm of protest song. A member of Local 802 AFM, the Author’s Guild, the National Writers Union, the Academy of American Poets & Poetry Society of New York. www.JohnPietaro.com
• Hannah Kuhn (AFM, Local 6, San Francisco)  Freelance cellist and organizer from Tennessee. She brings experience from organizing to set standards with fellow freelance musicians, and extensive time in state/local policy and community organizing. While in Chattanooga from 2018-2021,she served as AFM Local 80’s Delegate to the Local Area Labor Council, and served as Record Secretary on the Executive Committee.
• Aaron Fowler  (AFM, Local 1000, President): A Musician, Teaching Artist, and Children’s Author from Wichita, KS.  Aaron was a Middle School choral teacher for 11 years and since 1995 has been a traveling musician.  He has been a member of the American Federated Musicians Union Local 1000 (North American Traveling Musicians Union!) since 1999.  He has served on the Executive board as the Mid-Western Rep., U.S. Vice President and is currently in his third year as President. www.aaronfowler.org
• Carolann Solebello  (AFM, Local 1000, Member). Joined AFM Local 1000 in 2015 and has served on the union’s Fair Trade Music Committee since 2019. She has worked professionally as a bass player, harmony singer, and solo singer/songwriter for more than two decades, and believes cultural workers of all descriptions deserve fair and just wages, good and safe working conditions, and a dignified retirement. Carolann is an NYC native and a third-generation union member.  www.carolannsolebello.com
• Marc Ribot Founding and Active member of www.MusicWorkersAlliance.org. A working musician since the mid 1970’s [see www.marcribot.com]. He joined the AFM in Lewiston Maine in 1976 and has been a Local 802 member since 1979.  He is a founding member of the Noise Action Coalition and several other indie organizing projects in and around Local 802, the Content Creators Coalition, the Artist Rights Alliance, and the Artist Rights Caucus of Local 802. In 2019, he was a founding member of the Music Workers Alliance.

2C) Co-Create An Earth Song Medley for Saturday Performance

Participants will share songs on the theme chosen.  Then, we’ll lead a discussion on choosing the songs from which to excerpt a verse/chorus.  We’ll sequence them as a montage and all rehearse them to share at the Saturday evening collaborative concert.

Facilitators:

• Judy Gorman
• Lindsey Wilson
• Liz Taub

2D) TBA

Claudia Jones Room –Mezzanine

[DESCRIPTION TBA]

Facilitators:

2.Z.1) Hands Across the Hills: Song Swap on Dialog

Zoom Room

Do you have a song that speaks about dialogue or healing that you'd like to share? What's involved when we're trying to choose songs that promote connection and understanding?

In the first thirty minutes, we'll hear a song brought to Sandy Hook after the shootings. Then, we’ll hear from dialogue leaders who are also songwriters. Songs will be presented that are used in two long-standing dialogue groups. These are Hands Across the Hills, which links local networks in Western Massachusetts and Eastern Kentucky.  The second is Bridge4Unity, whose members are equally BIPOC and of European descent.  

We'll have a full hour to combine song swap and conversation.  We’ll consider what is involved in writing a song that conveys a spirit of unity and how songs sometimes unconsciously leave out certain people.  In the culture at large, songs that exclude portions of our beloved community are common.  They even appear in the open and generous space of the People’s Music Network.  We’ll hear about two examples from past PMN Round Robins when interventions were made to promote dialogue and re-assert values of inclusion, following such appearances.  Sometimes, even songs consciously intended to convey a spirit of solidarity can make assumptions.  We’ll consider the complex question: when does a song truly embrace solidarity and when does it usurp someone else’s voice?  The maxim —“Nothing about us without us” — will lead us into discussion.

PMN Steering Committee member, Eric Law, will lead us into the song swap section.

Facilitators:

• Sarah Pirtle: Joined PMN in 1982 and has led dozens of PMN workshops. She is an active member of both Hands Across the Hills and Bridge4Unity. Her nine recordings include “Everyday Bravery” that has biographical voices including: children connected to the Palestinian House of Friendship; a torture survivor; and “The Ballad of Juanita Nelson”.  She was a primary founder of the Children’s Music Network, an offshoot from PMN.  Her novel that received a national book award, “An Outbreak of Peace,” has just been reissued.
• Eric Law:

2.Z.2) Open Song  Swap

Zoom Room

[DESCRIPTION TBA]

Facilitators:

Sunday, February 12, 2023, Workshop #3:

11:00 AM - 12:45 PM (ET)

3.Z.1) Songs of the Spirit [Zoom Only]

Zoom Room

Come join us in this shared experience of Community and Heart.  You're invited to enjoy a (digital) community circle where inspirational and empowering songs from many traditions rise up from the group.  Singers offer a song one by one without instruments or song sheets.  These are songs that people know or can learn easily without requiring a lot of teaching.

In this online event, we are drawing upon the tradition of Songs of the Spirit, which has been a consistent feature of PMN/SFS Gatherings since 1977.  One person will sing and others will sing along.  We ask everyone to mute themselves while the one person is singing, allowing all of us to at least see each other as we fill our separate physical spaces with music.

Between songs, we pause, breathe and feel the energy and connection of the group. We are sustaining this rich tradition during the pandemic, despite the inherent limits of Zoom.  One part of our tradition is recognizing that the silence is sacred.  In avoiding the urgency to fill a space with song, once we finally do fill a space with song, that song sinks in more deeply.  This is a wonderful opportunity to build community and to harmonize (in your own home) and to start the day with some grounded sacredness.

Facilitators:  TBA

3.Z.2) Use Music and Activism to Better Your World

Zoom Room

Learn how to use live performances to not only raise awareness, but also effectively engage, recruit, and activate volunteers to take meaningful action. The workshop will provide guidelines for organizing standalone shows and tours, as well as how-to instructions for a proven volunteer recruitment technique called "barnstorming."  Barnstorming is a long-standing method used by grassroots activists to encourage audience members to pledge and take immediate action(s). The workshop will also discuss how to select potential partners (causes, candidates, etc.), media and promotion strategies, and tactics for getting people to the performances.

Facilitators:

• Pete Kronowitt is an activist and performing songwriter based in San Francisco. He founded the Face the Music Collective to offer a guide for creative activists utilizing performances to inspire targeted individual action.  
• Laura Sue Wilansky, widely known as The Silver Nightingale, is a musician (flute, vocals, ukulele, kazoo), composer, copy editor, author, artist and activist. Renowned for her magical flute music, she loves to create harmony everywhere, and received an award from Pres. Obama for her decades of hospice music work.

3.Z.3) Guitar Workshop

Zoom Room

This workshop is aimed at all motivated guitarists.  Having a degree of playing facility and musical experience will be helpful.  I promise to be supportive as possible to all who attend while working through a full agenda.  We will play through a series of facilitated workouts (charts provided) addressing the following two fundamental and complimentary guitar/music aspects:

1. Fingerboard Knowledge – It is hard to get where you are going if you are unsure of where you are, your immediate surroundings and the layout of fingerboard regions beyond.  We improve by consciously searching for and finding note combinations that are meaningful to the music we are driven to create.

2. Expanding Chordal Knowledge – Exploration of harmonic language as applied to guitar through the study of chord families, chord voicings, inversions, progressions and voice leading filtered through the following perspectives:

a.  Mechanical - what shapes are physically possible to play

b.  Sonic (by ear) – following the dictates of our inner hearing

c.  Descriptive - theory both formal and personal

Instructor:

• Barry Kornhauser:  Member of PMN since 1979. A worker/musician, multi-instrumentalist (cello, guitar, bass, mandola) composer, arranger, performer and teacher in a wide variety of musical environments with a lifetime of collaboration with and lending support to progressive artists including Suni Paz, Bev Grant, Jay Mankita, Bernardo Palombo, Cutumay Camones, Jolie Rickman, Meredith Wright, New Translations, Lucia Pulido, Jana Herzen, Luis Diaz, Juan Lazaro Mendolas, Jaque DuPree, Tomas Rodriguez, David Gonzalez, Chris Owens.