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McClure Productions

March 16th, 2009 by Glenn | Posted in Teaching | No Comments »

As we work to upgrade the website, here is some information on McClure Productions and Glenn’s current projects. Email Glenn or call us at 585-243-0324 for more information.

Global Arts Education-W/OW

Together with our Denver-based partner W/OW (WithOut Words Inc.), we are using the Arts to teach vital health education lessons in the Third World.  Our pilot projects in Ghana, Haiti, and Kenya engage local folktales and artistic traditions in combating the ravages of malaria and other insect-born illness.  Call us to find out how you can participate in the exciting work!

Galileo’s Universe

Students, artists, scholars, and educators around the world are exploring not only the science of Galileo, but also his life, his family, and Art.  Galileo grew up in a family of artists and musicians and some scholars have identified powerful connections between his history-changing scientific discoveries and his arts training.   We transform the texts of Galileo and his family into artworks that are shared around the world.  This program was created in collaboration with bestselling author, Dava Sobel (“Longitude,” “Galileo’s Daughter”).

Retelling the Story: From Slavery to Freedom

Students, artists, scholars, and educators in the US, Europe, and West Africa are sharing their unique perspectives and knowledge of their shared history-the Atlantic Slave Trade.  Each participating organization presents their research in artistic presentations, thereby transforming the triangle of slavery and bondage into a triangle of creativity and collaboration.

Arts Partnerships

We design and implement customized arts partnership projects and residencies for K12 schools, colleges/universities, and civic government.  These programs target specific challenges of each organization with highly motivational arts activities designed to build new connections and reveal new insights.  Give us a call about how to leverage the power of arts-based learning for your organization!

Art in Education Concert Programs

Our team of top-notch teaching artists continue to offer Arts in Education Concert Programs in K12 schools.  Each program uses the power of music to animate specific curriculum goals for a wide variety of classrooms.  All of our concerts include audience participation both on and off the stage.  We are currently offering the following programs:
           

The Great Garbage Concert - Take Recycling/Environmental Education to its silliest frontier!

The Rainforest- A musical exploration of the diverse layers of the tropical rainforest.

Steel Drum Paradise- Follow this musical voyage that takes us through the mixing of West
African and European music on the island of Trinidad, and how some teens created a new musical instrument out of the clash of these cultures

Regions of the United States-Take a trip around the US through the music and history of its
diverse people.           

The Music of Glenn McClure

Check in on the latest news and availability of Glenn McClure’s music.  His works for choir, band, and orchestra continue to excite audiences and build artistic collaborations between musicians around the world.   In recent years, Glenn has focused much of his creative efforts toward the creation of World Music Opera.  While some of his works are available through Earthsongs Publishing and Roger Dean Publishing (a Lorenz Company), the rest are available through McClure Produtions.


Sunday in Ghana

November 9th, 2008 by paula@artforbrains.com | Posted in Teaching | No Comments »

This trip continues to become more surreal.  Remember when I wrote about the hard rain that kept getting harder and harder?  Well that has become a theme for the trip.

Whereas I started the trip with orphans at a rural school in an Appalachia-like area, I thought that the lavish hotel was going to be the other end of the spectrum.  Well it gets more extreme.  At the last minute, the local chief created a small dinner event with us and the entire team of local political leaders.  The protocol was pretty dense for most of the evening (all managed by a protocol officer that has recently become the president of Ghanaian protocol officers), and the ceremonial part of the event was very dignified and beautiful.  Victor asked me to give an impromptu speech about the vision of our partnership, so I made up something and the chief asked me to give a copy of the speech (huh! he thought that I wrote it ahead of time?) to be used as an introduction to the new foundational document on his newly created international business council.  So, after this email, I will be writing like crazy tonight.

It didn’t stop there.  After my speech, the chief declared that all protocols would be suspended for the rest of the evening.  It must have been something I said!   The discussion opened up into a terrific exchange of ideas, commitment and planning.

Just as we were concluding the meeting, the chief handed out some chocolate to take back to the Chamber of Commerce.  He then told us that we would be meeting with the president of Ghana on Monday for lunch.  He handed out invitations, but few other details.  So, it is official, in 8 days, I go from spending time with the people with the least power (the orphans) to the man with the most power.

More to report later.

Glenn


Ghana- Nov 8, 08

November 9th, 2008 by paula@artforbrains.com | Posted in Teaching | No Comments »

Internet access has been difficult the last couple of days,  but now that I have it for a short time, here is a quick update.

Our group were honored guests at the ritual sacrifice of a sheep yesterday.  This festival was mind blowing.  It commemorated the exodus journey of the Asante people.  The chief was there in so much ritual it made the Pope look down right Presbyterian.

I have been with Victor (the trip organizer, a Ghanaian from Rochester, NY) and his family.  He put us up in a high-end hotel,  so coming from the orphanage,  I had lots of culture shock…  from the poorest of the poor to a tiny island of first world extravagance.

A great part of the trip has been to pal around with my friend, Ruth Hollinger and her new boyfriend from Wisconsin.  Ruth is from Avon, NY and attending a university here in Ghana.

We are eating with the chief tonight at a pretty snazzy affair.

More later when the infrastructure is better.

Ciao-
Glenn


Glenn in Ghana

November 6th, 2008 by paula@artforbrains.com | Posted in Teaching | No Comments »

Glenn and the McClure Productions team are working on a number of projects in Ghana.  One is a new project.  We are doing a pilot project to develop art-based instruction to teach children and families in Third World countries how to use mosquito netting.  Mosquito netting is shown to reduce the incidence of disease in locations where disease is spread by this insect.  Global health workers deliver the netting to locations in need, but instruction on how to use the netting is often ineffective or non existent.

The other project is The Triangle of Trade project which creates partnerships among students from the North America with their peers in England and Ghana along with students from SUNY Geneseo. The students are transforming the old “triangle of the slave trade” into a triangle of learning and understanding.  The first part of this project was for the purpose of composing and performing an original opera based upon an early slave narrative, which was performed in Rochester, NY in May 2008.
Glenn is traveling to Ghana with a group of people from Livingston County, NY as part of a Sister County Project lead by the Livingston County Chamber of Commerce and a coalition of other organizations.

Paula

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First E-Letter from Glenn in Ghana Nov 5, 2008
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Hey Everyone,

The last couple days have rocked my world.  After landing in Accra (their international airport differs from the Geneseo airport mostly in pavement, but not much else), they drove me through a slow grind of traffic through roads overcrowded with both cars and 4 to 8 year-old salesman selling everything from bananas to sun glasses, to commemorative Obama posters.  Once we cleared the worst urban poverty I have ever seen, we cut out into the rural area near the coast and eventually landed in the “Village of Hope.”

The Village of Hope sits about a 20 minute walk from the coast.  The closest village called Feteh is Ghana’s answer to Appalachia.  This village of utter poverty is on the outskirts of a lavish resort filled with lots of Germans. Village of Hope is a combined residential facility for about 200 orphans and a school that educates them and another 300 who walk (or are bussed) in from the surrounding villages.  The orphans live in homes of about 25 each with one set of house parents.  This operation is run by the Church of Christ, so the head master is also the guy who preaches on Sunday.  The school day is punctuated with academic classes, religious education classes, singing, a hand rung bell (that sounds more like a monastery than a school building) pick up soccer games, and lots of free play.  All the kids have chores here, too and seem to have a deep seated, unspoken (and yes, monastic) sense of duty to making things work. Both children and adults here have endless Obama questions, but I get the sense that even without the election, the conversations would start as easily.  The kids regularly grab my hand and walk with me, sometimes working to pronounce my name, some times just to walk quietly.  Last night there was a pick up drumming session where I traded the kpanlogo (drum) with some plastic buckets with some kids that rotated in and out of the dance.

I live in the guest house. This is also the place where the SUNY Geneseo students gather for all their meals.  Our house mother is Latisha.  She made some kickin’ fried plantains and black eyed pea stew for lunch.  Next door are some folks that feed the construction workers that are currently putting up new building for a clinic.  They were busy making Fufu, a mashed concoction of cassava and yams that is boiled in huge pot over a an open pit fire. It is then mashed by two people, one that crushes it with a 6-foot pole and the other who stirs it with their hands in a beautiful dance-like motion that avoids getting their hands mashed by the heavy pole. The pork we ate for dinner was a walking pig only an hour before.  Some of the American students were a bit unnerved by that but it didn’t stop them from eating well.

The SUNY Geneseo student teachers are doing well.  First of all, unlike study abroad programs where the student goes to study, here the college students go to provide a service.  They are here to work and learn. This has added some challenging twists to the typical study abroad gig, not to mention the frequent reminders that they are not in Kansas anymore but are squarely in the Third World. The Ghanaian teachers see them not as student teachers, but as colleagues.  From the first day, they had confidence in them to take classes solo, without a net.  This has been both exciting and terrifying for students that are used to walking through an intensive, rigid protocol and protection of American Education. They are creating a new literacy program with the help of an Australian who was hear to deliver books.  I think that this program will be taken up by the other faculty and will help the little ones greatly in their reading abilities. It is only the first two weeks, but they are handling it well and there is no doubt about their love for the kids and vice versa. I am very proud of these SUNY students.

Yesterday afternoon, the clear hot blue sky was invaded by an angry storm cloud out of a grade B science fiction movie.  It lunged upon our area in what seemed only like minutes and sent the kids scattering to gather up the outside laundry, and the soccer balls.  It rained hard, then a little harder, and every time I thought it couldn’t get harder, it got harder and louder.  These flash rain storms are the reason for the trenches built into every building and occupied landscape.  It left as fast as it started, the blue sky returned, leaving a little gift of a couple degrees lower temperature.  In this heat and humidity, every degree lower is like eating a half gallon of ice cream all by yourself.

It has been very cool to be here for Obama’s election.  The whole continent is one big party.  Even the conservative Christians here that disagree with him on abortion are still cheering for him.  Today I taught a lesson on the African Slave Trade with one of the SUNY Geneseo student teachers and the middle school social studies teacher named Mr Essel.  We ended the lesson with a discussion of how slavery still exists (this school is an orphanage filled with kids that most likely would have been stolen to work in the fishing industry or prostitution).  Since everyone here is talking about the election, it didn’t take long for the students to realize the connection between the slave trade and Obama’s election.  In general, Ghanaian students do not study what happened to the slaves after they left their shores.  They don’t have much sense of how black/white racism has shaped some much of America’s mindset.  But today, one of the kids spoke eloquently in class about how Obama has healed a wound of history.  Wow.

Tomorrow, I team teach a mosquito net lesson with the art teacher and go back to Accra with Beatrice Lokko to meet with some folks about next year’s triangle of trade project.  Friday, I go to meet up with the rest of the Geneseo delegation in Koforidua.  Saturday is a huge state funeral for the finance minister, that is rumored do be an even bigger party than the Obama party.

That’s all for now.  Suffice it to say, I have enjoyed the first couple of days here.  Latisha says that when some one visits Ghana, they always come back. Hmmmmm.

Glenn


Glenn’s News from Ghana

November 6th, 2008 by paula@artforbrains.com | Posted in Teaching | 1 Comment »