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Diving Back In  For our returning students, Sistema programming begins on Monday, September 25th with our monthly themes of Identity and Pitch For our new students and those in our Music and Movement classes, the Sistema year will begin with an Orientation Day on October 10th. Here, new students will have the chance to get settled in, meet their teachers and classmates, and hear about the exciting year ahead.

 

New Faces 

While the majority of our teaching artists this year will be familiar faces, we have some exciting new additions to our team! A big welcome to Heather Huynh, Paul van der Sloot, Magdalena Tang, Daniela Olana Garcia, Parnian Aghaiani, Hannah Martin, Zoë Gotziaman, Yolanda Tapia, Veda Hingert-MacDonald, Leslie Townsend, Gemma Don, Kelvin Mansaray, Andrew Park, and Frank Martinez.

We're also excited to announce that Morgan Melbourne has been hired as a Development Officer on the Sistema Toronto administrative team. Morgan has been a teaching artist at Sistema Toronto for 5 years, and we're excited to see how her insights into the program and familiarity with Sistema's mission will inform her work in this new role. Welcome, Morgan!

Honours Coordinators 

This year, we're thrilled to announce that we've hired a team of Honours Coordinators who will help guide our honours students through their growth and learning. As liaisons between the admin team and honours students who have graduated from regular Sistema classes, these coordinators will be able to ensure that programming is customized to suit the needs of each centre, and will allow us to be much more flexible in how we schedule and deliver honours ensemble programming. These musical professionals bring a wealth of knowledge, passion, and experience to the Sistema program and we look forward to seeing how their support and guidance pave the way for our honours students to thrive.

Sistema LEARN App  Over the last year, Sistema Toronto has had the opportunity to work with BluePrint: a student-led group from the University of Toronto who develop software for non-profit organizations working for social good. Their hard work has resulted in an app that integrates our curriculum activity cards in a neat, simple format, helping our teaching artists access them easily. This app will enhance the teaching experience for our dedicated staff, empowering them to provide even more engaging and effective lessons to our students.

Fire Up! 

In early September, our teaching artists and representatives from our administrative team flew to Chicago for the Fire Up! Retreat: a three-day event organized by the Academy for Impact Through Music (AIM) and hosted by Sistema Ravinia. Here, they had the opportunity to meet other musical change-makers to discuss reflective reaching practices, lesson documentation, leadership, peer coaching, and creating social impact through music. We look forward to reporting on how their newfound insights and experiments will enrich this year's programming.

 

Sistema Canada Professional Development 

To ensure that our teaching artists are properly supported throughout the year, they have attended Professional Development sessions held by the Sistema Canada Network. Their learning included general music teaching, strategies and methods for teaching beginner strings, and inclusive teaching practices. They also had the opportunity to connect with other teachers throughout Canada who are doing similar work and learn about upcoming developments within the Sistema Canada Network, including a vast shared resource library. We're grateful that our teachers are part of such a robust community and look forward to seeing them put their learning into practice.

We couldn't be more excited to be starting another year of musical discoveries, empowering growth, and rewarding work with you: our Sistema Toronto community. Keep your eyes on this space for updates throughout the year, information about our classes and workshops, interviews with our special guests, and news about the accomplishments our students are making.

Thank you for your continued support of our program!