School of Music appoints Artist Activist in Residence
NewsSo this is why kids go to music school?
Longy School of Music of Bard College has named acclaimed composer, musician, educator, and activist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) as the school’s first-ever Artist Activist-in-Residence. DBR brings over two decades of experience as a musician and activist to the yearlong position.
Renowned for chamber, orchestral, and operatic compositions that blend electronic and African American influences, DBR has performed on American Idol and National Public Radio, worked with artists as varied as Lady Gaga and Philip Glass…
The role of Artist Activist-in-Residence is designed to help Longy students develop as musician-activists—exploring musicianship in social contexts, bending genres, and probing what it means to be a teaching artist in today’s times.
Interesting choice since Longy has always been a fairly conservative school. A fine school, to be sure, but not exactly cutting edge.
They are not Longy anymore, they were bought by Bard. Not a conservative school at all.
Bard has always been refreshingly different. Good for them in doing this. Leon Botstein is the President.
Q. What does it mean to be a teaching artist in today’s times?
A: Most likely, poverty and obscurity.
I couldn’t agree more. At best, adjuncting.
An excellent move. Conservatory students no longer can count on professional opportunities that rely solely on their primary training. They need supplementary skills, and to have someone who already has those mentoring them is a credit to Longy and Bard.
Supplementary skills, perhaps, but activism won’t play a scale, won’t pay the bills, nor will it lead to better musicianship. Longy has long been the little school in the shadows of NEC and BU so this has the look of desperate virtue signaling. Bonus: have you heard his music?
I think you’re doing this wrong Jerome. There should be less conservatory students period.
These colleges are pumping out more and more future frustrated activists.
All good, but tuition at Bard is $59,800. Room and board is $17,180. Four years will leave you $306,720 in debt, minus whatever scholarship money you might get. And for a music degree in a country that spends less per capita on the arts than almost any developed country in the world.
Yes, unless they offer full tuition scholarships, US conservatories are a rip-off for the most part. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaXyRPzyHcg
Fine training is never a rip-off. People who go to a conservatory to learn how to make money are not musicians, they are hacks-in-the making.
How heart-warming.
No five-year-old says “I want to be a musician-activist” when I grow up.
“Artist activist in residence” sounds great! Fingers gued to instruments?
Music school college teaches activism. So lame.
What could be more activist than expertise in solfege?
Like the LSO Chief Guest Conductor Dr Andre Thomas – box ticking musical activist. And still a reduced ACE grant!
I’ve had the pleasure of performing under Dr. Andre Thomas’ baton and no one in their right mind could call him “box ticking.” Shame on you for so snidely speaking about such a brilliant musician and educator.
I have too. The problem is he is an educator, not a conductor. He advises music education students. he is a choral conductor and arranger. He has little to do with the LSO.
Just what we need a generation of rebels without a cause. Meanwhile, the real work is done by every cultural organization trying to retain and grow its audience.
Heather MacDonald got it right calling out the “Racial Hustle” that this guy’s all about.
https://www.city-journal.org/tulsa-opera-daniel-bernard-roumain
What a waste of money.