Schenectady County Connects supports a youth development program that offers summer jobs for Schenectady County youth. For the third year in a row, New York Folklore has been fortunate in being supported by this Schenectady County agency as a employment site for teens ages 14 – 19. For six weeks this summer, New York Folklore supervised youth for twenty hours each week.
While the New York Folklore employment opportunity was predominantly focused on learning to be an ensemble member for the Schenectady/West African Youth Ensemble, (an artist-led initiative by master Ghanaian drummer, Zorkie Nelson), youth also learned skills in digital music composition, screen printing and sewing. They learned about folk and traditional arts from New York Folklore staff, and they participated in a public art project to decorate Schenectady’s historic ALCO pedestrian tunnel with community-designed ceramic tiles provided by C.R.E.A.T.E Community Studios.
The Schenectady/West African Youth Ensemble participated in the Summer Meals Block Parties, supported by Sycamore Collective and the United Way for the Greater Capital Region. These community-wide celebrations took place in Schenectady’s city parks, with the Schenectady West African Youth Ensemble providing musical entertainment for three of the five Block Parties. Their summer’s-long educational experience concluded with the incredible opportunity for the youth to join with the West African ensemble, Gballoi, on stage as part of the Music Haven Concert series, expertly performing in front of more than 400 audience members. A selective group of these young musicians now form the nucleus for a newly created “performance ensemble,” which is available for community-based performances.
As New York State looks to support the “Creative Economy,” it is important that young people experience the variety of artistic and creative enterprises that are possible career paths. As a young musician, I did not encounter folklore and ethnomusicology until I was an undergraduate student at Wesleyan University. New York Folklore is happy to introduce folk and traditional arts and culture to Schenectady’s youth and to experience their excitement when they draw artistic and cultural connections between their own lived experiences, their neighbors, and their families’ heritages.
Thank you to Schenectady Connects and the Schenectady County Youth Bureau, C.R.E.A.T.E. Community Studios, Smalls on Jay, JeVaughn Joseph, Pauline Saunders, Zorkie Nelson, and The Electric City Barn for their support in making this youth development program the success that it was. Thank you also to funding accorded by the Schenectady County Youth Bureau, Stewarts Holiday Match, the Schenectady Rotary Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts. These funders together made this program possible.