Workshop/ Residency

Artist: Liberty Brass

Schools can add up to three 45 minute workshops (tailored to grade level) before or following the performance (teachers select the participating classrooms) taught by Liberty Brass leader Ross Cohen. The workshops focus on honing some of the fundamental skills of brass playing including: breathing, buzzing on the mouthpiece, singing/ear training, extending range, and more.

For older students, master class workshops where individual students play and receive instruction in front of their peers cover more advanced techniques including: sound development, musical expression, practice techniques, preparing solos/auditions, etc.

Workshop content is flexible and can be created with the teacher and musician.

Artist: Christina Farrell

Opera is rich with opportunities to explore history, literature, diverse cultures, music, drama, and performing techniques. This program offers custom-fit, curriculum-based residencies for classrooms which allow students to discover how music can illustrate setting, mood and character in a story and perhaps create an original opera themselves. Coaching on healthy vocal technique is available for musical ensembles as well. Opera Ignite Founding Director Christina Farrell received a BFA in vocal performance from Carnegie Mellon University. She has performed with Washington National Opera and Baltimore’s Opera Vivente, and has served on the voice faculties of Peabody Preparatory and Washington D.C.’s Levine School of Music.

Artist: Billy Jackson

The creative processes involved in filmmaking engage students in visualization and storytelling while honing skills of problem-solving, troubleshooting , meeting deadlines and consensus-building. The end result is a preserved point of view, once-only event or collectively created program that can be a priceless resource for many years to come. The experience that Billy brings to media arts projects is drawn from more than thirty years as an independent filmmaker, five years as an associate professor and over fifteen years as an educator in community, educational and cultural settings.

Artist: Dan Kamin

Dan Kamin created the physical comedy scenes for the films Benny and Joon and Chaplin, and trained Johnny Depp and Robert Downey, Jr. for their acclaimed performance. He also played the vengeful wooden Indian in the cult classic Creepshow 2, consulted on My Best Friend’s Wedding, and created the weird Martian movement for Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks!

Students love meeting someone involved with movies, and Dan Kamin uses the opportunity to draw them into the art of movement.  A gifted teacher and the author of two acclaimed books on Charlie Chaplin, he reveals the secrets behind his movement illusions in this entertaining, hands-on workshop.  Aside from being fun, the workshop teaches basic principles of expressive communication and offers participants ways to be more comfortable physically.  This workshop is most effective in conjunction with one of Dan’s assembly programs, The Pantomime Man (K-5) and The Illusionist (6-12).

A second option for elementary schools is Dan’s “classroom blitz”—ten minute post-show visits to every class in the school, in which the students learn some additional movement skills during their one-on-one visit with The Pantomime Man.

Artist: Joann Kielar

In Art-Infusion K-2, visual artist/puppeteer Joann Kielar designs developmentally appropriate projects to enhance and reinforce curriculum objectives. Joann has been trained in techniques of arts integration through the Wolftrap Institute and enjoys collaborating with teachers to create one-of-a-kind experiences related to classroom standards and objectives.  She holds an MFA from the University of Pennsylvania and has worked for many years in classrooms throughout the Pittsburgh area.