Noe Music’s transition to digital content is robust and diverse, as their latest announcement attests. Co-Artistic Directors Meena Bhasin and Owen Dalby have put forth a number of intriguing initiatives that underscore Noe Music’s ongoing commitment to grassroots, community-oriented programing.
Most striking, perhaps, is the Lullaby Project, which pairs pregnant and new mothers experiencing homelessness with world-class musicians to compose and record original lullabies for their babies. The project is in local partnership with the Homeless Prenatal Program and is a national partner of Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute. Artists engaged for the program include Diana Gameros, Chilean guitarist and singer-songwriter Camila Meza, jazz vocalist Sarah Elizabeth Charles, and Latin Grammy-nominee Sonia De Los Santos. You can see and hear some of the lullabies created during the January 2021 session here.
The Lullaby Project is funded exclusively by individual donations to Noe Music. They have a one-for-one model that allows donors to sponsor a lullaby session for an expecting mother experiencing homelessness and receive a personalized lullaby-writing session for themselves or a loved one. Get more information at www.noemusic.org/lullaby.
The next Lullaby Project will take place on March 17, 19, and 26.
Look for a Celebration of Musicians Around the Bay on April 10, 2021, at 7 p.m. Pacific. On tap for this virtual showcase of talent and diversity are:
Quinteto Latino — a wind quintet focusing on the music of Latin American composers, presenting a newly commissioned work by Gabriela Lena Frank
Alam Khan — sarod master from the Ali Akbar College of Music in San Rafael, performing a raga in the Indian classical tradition
Friction Quartet — a string quartet known for its innovative repertoire
Stars Aligned Siblings — an award-winning string quartet of siblings ranging in age from 8 to 14
Tickets are $25 and available online. Additional donation opportunities are also available at the website.
Regular readers of SFCV should be familiar with Heinz Award-winning composer Gabriela Lena Frank, who will be hosting the Noe Music Listening Club on April 29, 2021 at 7 p.m. Pacific. Frank will curate a playlist of favorites and influences and chat about the selections with Noe Music’s Bhasin and Dalby. More information and donation options here.
And for family fun, look for the Composer’s Playbook, a crash-course in musical creation for families and curious minds of all ages, but specifically targeted for kids ages 6–10. Conceived and hosted by composer Danny Clay, the video program leads participants through the process of finding and collecting sounds in their everyday spaces, organizing those sounds into patterns and sequences, and creating drawings to represent those sounds to form their own notation. Videos and written worksheets will be distributed free of charge to San Francisco District 8 elementary schools. The series will consist of four workshops led by Clay, with guest appearances by musicians like Kronos Quartet, the Delphi Trio, and students from across the country.