Civic Fellowship Program
Through an array of experiences designed to build and diversify creative and professional skills, the Civic Fellowship is a season-long program that empowers participants to realize their full potential as artistically excellent, civically engaged, collaborative and entrepreneurial musicians.
The program’s curriculum has four major pillars: artistic planning, music education, social justice and project management. Fellows serve as facilitators in projects like Notes for Peace, explore music by living composers, perform concerts at Symphony Center as well as in schools and communities across the city, mentor young musicians through the CSO-Connect program, design and implement independent projects, and more. Additionally, Fellows participate in enrichment activities including regular meetings as a cohort and professional development seminars with guest lecturers.
As part of the Civic Fellowship program, participants receive funding from the Negaunee Music Institute to carry out a project of their own design that creates engaging musical experiences and serves communities across Chicago. Read about the innovative projects of the 2024/25 Season cohort below.
J Holzen - Transcendent Souls: A Celebration of Trans Identity and Sound
Building off learnings from their sensory-friendly concert last season, J’s project is a concert of music by trans composers performed by trans musicians in collaboration with Wicker Park Lutheran Church. This concert, also sensory-friendly, will illuminate common themes and values to trans and religious communities such as the sacredness of the human body, cosmic inheritance and transness as participating in the divine act of creation. To further support trans artistry, J conducted a call for scores for composers who self-identify as transgender, nonbinary, gender fluid, genderqueer, or gender nonconforming, for which they received over 40 submissions. With so much tension between ideologies in our current climate, J hopes to use music to illuminate the similarities that can draw communities closer together rather than pull them further apart.
Amy Hur - All Inclusive Music
In partnership with KEEN Chicago, Amy’s project offered a multi-step introduction to music for a group of 20 youth and their families. KEEN Chicago creates sport and recreational experiences for children and young adults with disabilities, but they had yet to explore musical offerings before Amy’s project last season. For a second year, Amy presented a workshop at Symphony Center for KEEN members that included a crafts session where participants made a variety of handheld instruments, and then a play-along concert with a live ensemble of Civic musicians. The music included introductions about each piece, discussion about which emotions the music might evoke, and different musical concepts like volume and tempo that participants could practice with their crafted instruments in the live performance. Finally, KEEN families attended the CSO for Kids concert Music of our Emotions to experience the sights and sounds of the symphony orchestra.
Cameron Marquez - Voices of the Future – Bridge Percussion
Cameron is a member of Bridge Percussion, a Chicago-based percussion collective passionate about elevating and expanding access to percussion ensemble repertoire. Percussion ensemble music offers a powerful platform to connect communities across cultures and celebrates unique and diverse musical styles and voices. Yet, traditional concert programming often overlooks works and their composers who write for this instrumentation. For Cameron’s project, he curated a Bridge Percussion concert series in three venues with the goal of exposing three different communities across the city to percussion ensemble music: Zhou B Art Center, All Saints Episcopal Church, and Buntrock Hall at Symphony Center.
Marian Mayuga - Tertulia: Filipino Chamber Music
In its third iteration, Marian partnered with the Filipino American (FilAm) Music Foundation to present a concert featuring works written and performed by Filipino musicians. She presented this concert in Buntrock Hall at Symphony Center with the goal of bringing traditional and modern Filipino classical chamber music to the building. Her audiences were mainly comprised of members of the Filipino community, demonstrating to them that there is a plethora of music coming from their culture and that it deserves to be played on classical music stages. There was also an optional donation opportunity at each concert, and Marian raised almost $2,500 over the three years for FilAm.
Matt Musachio - Their Story to Tell: The Artistic Legacy of the Holocaust
Matt continued his partnership from last season with CJE SeniorLife. This project is an exploration of music written by survivors of the Holocaust and will again take place during CJE’s annual Holocaust Survivor Day event, this year at Emanuel Congregation. The chamber ensemble will perform works throughout the event that celebrate the triumph of the human spirit, in the form of the remarkable works written by surviving composers and other notable composers of the time, but also the survivors who will be in attendance in the audience. They will also record this concert so that the music can be shared throughout the entire survivors network and further expose the community to this music.
Kari Novilla - Chamber of Change
This project seeks to use music and artistic expression to support the healing and growth of individuals who have been formerly incarcerated. Kari partnered with UCAN’s FLIP (Flatlining Violence Inspires Peace) program, where individuals who have been formerly incarcerated or have a past of misconduct train to become representatives that deter gun violence and keep peace in some of Chicago’s most violent neighborhoods. Following an introductory workshop with four musicians (including two Civic Fellow alums), Kari held office hours with the participants to help them write lyrics and collage musical selections that form their own musical compositions. These pieces were then performed in a concert for the FLIP community, creating a space for participants’ voices to be heard and creativity to flourish.
JT O’Toole & Sava Velkoff - Finding Folk Through Classical Connections
Most people interact with music in a non-classical manner in their day-to-day lives, yet students in high school orchestra programs are taught primarily through a classical lens. Though there are many merits to learning music this way, students may be limited in the scope of their musical expression. Sava and JT were exposed to folk music traditions in their musical upbringing that expanded their ears to what music can be. To bring that experience to today’s students, they partnered with three CPS high school orchestra classes to present a series of two folk music workshops. First, they led a 45-minute presentation demonstrating the connections between classical and folk music, and on the second visit they taught the students how to play a Macedonian folk song from Sava’s heritage. Following the workshops, they provided students with information on institutions that specialize in folk styles for those that want to continue their learning (Old Town School of Folk Music, Sones de México, etc.)
Mason Spencer - Empowered Creatives
Mason’s project combines the approachability of graphic scores with the therapeutic benefits of artistic expression to encourage participants from UCAN’s READI program, a group for individuals transitioning out of the prison system, to explore their innate creativity. Through a series of two workshops, participants responded to music through creative writing and visual art, and by the end developed their own graphic score that the project’s musicians performed. By developing workshops that are accessible regardless of musical and artistic background, and by engaging in creative writing and graphic compositional technique, Mason hopes to demonstrate that creation is a fundamental means of self-expression, and all sound is music.
Lina Yamin - Ritmos de Venezuela (Rhythms of Venezuela)
Building off the success of her concert in a local migrant shelter last season, Venezuelan-native Lina Yamin presented a chamber concert of Venezuelan folk music to primarily Venezuelan audiences in Buntrock Hall at Symphony Center. Lina had to navigate the dissolution of migrant shelters across the city and consider other venues for her project this year, so she chose to show Venezuelan audiences that music from their culture has a place at Symphony Center. Almost 100 people attended the concert, which she promoted through WhatsApp groups and her personal network. Lina also wanted to ensure that this year’s concert was family-friendly; children often lack exposure to their cultural heritage when growing up in a different country and Lina wanted this concert to help families remain connected to their roots.