General Session: Towards Healing: Engaging with loss through ensemble pedagogy and artistic process

Dr. Eric Laprade
The College of New Jersey

Dr. Colleen Sears
The College of New Jersey

Band Rehearsal Hall
Saturday, March 29th
2:30 pm

Clinic Synopsis

This session will explore how conductors, students, and audiences can connect across differences and explore our shared humanity through artistic experience when faced with the universal experience of navigating life after loss. “Loss” can be defined in many ways: a death, a major life transition, fallout from the pandemic, a general sense of melancholy, grief about war and climate change, and on and on. No student, teacher or audience member is immune from these experiences; they become part of our classrooms, rehearsals, and concerts. How can we use musical experience to help us carry on? What does life after loss look like? Sound like? Feel like? While our answers to these questions are uniquely intimate and personal, we can draw strength from learning how others preserve, both individually and collectively. This session will explore The Artivism Project's "Life After Loss" initiative, a recent inter- and cross-disciplinary project at The College of New Jersey. Centering Viet Cuoung’s "Shared Spaces," a work specifically commissioned for this project, the presenters will provide a model for exploring the theme of Life After Loss in ways that allow for individual stories to be heard and for collective creativity to foster connection and healing.

Biographies

  • Dr. Eric Laprade is Director of Bands and Assistant Professor of Music at The College of New Jersey, where he conducts the wind ensemble and teaches courses in conducting, rehearsal techniques, and literature. He also serves as Managing Director, Artistic Partner, and Festival Wind Ensemble Conductor of South Shore Conservatory’s Summer Music Festival (Hingham, MA). Laprade has served as the Visiting Director of Wind Ensembles at The University of Utah and as Music Department Chairperson and Instrumental Music Teacher for the Randolph, MA Public Schools. He holds a Doctorate of Musical Arts in conducting from the Eastman School of Music, a Master of Music in conducting from the University of Michigan, and a Bachelor of Music in music education and tuba performance from the Eastman School of Music. His primary teachers include Mark Davis Scatterday, Michael Haithcock, and Malcolm W. Rowell, Jr.

  • Dr. Colleen Sears is an associate professor of music education and Chair of the Department of Music at The College of New Jersey. Her research focuses on gender issues in music education and the role of grief in teaching. Dr. Sears founded The Artivism Project, an initiative that engages students, composers, conductors, and educators with social justice topics through music performance and interdisciplinary experiences. She holds a Bachelor of Music from The College of New Jersey, a Master of Arts from the Eastman School of Music and a Doctor of Education in music education from Teachers College, Columbia University.