Community Programs
Musical Traditions is a hub for incubating multi-disciplinary arts projects from conception and production through performance, recording, and broadcast. We are dedicated to the creation of risk-taking and challenging performing artworks and to supporting the artists that conceive them in order to engender a more equitable, inclusive, and creative community.
In order to support the current and incubate the next generation of creative performing artists we provide community access to:
- Rehearsal studio and artistic production space for both short- and long-term rental
- Professional sound, lighting, and projection equipment at below-market rental rates
- High definition Video recording and live streaming technologies
- Performances opportunities on our In Studio Performances series
- We annually provide – through the Dresher Ensemble Artist Residency Program – six early/mid-career artists with free multi-week studio residencies, production stipend, and technical assistance/mentorship.
- Fiscal sponsorship to Bay Area multidisciplinary artists with a commitment to taking risks in the creation of new performing artworks
Co-Productions
We offer co-production support for project aligned with our mission. Current projects include:
- Both Eyes Open (Philip Kan Gotanda & Max Giteck Duykers chamber opera);
- The Electronic Lover, a podcast opera by Lisa Mezzacappa;
- MEKONG — The River Runs by Vân-Ánh Võ;
- The Rebirth of Apsara by Charya Burt Cambodian Dance.
We continue to work with Oakland Unified School District teachers Awele Makeba (Skyline High School Theater program) and Helena Moss-Jack (music program at Elmhurst Middle School and the all-district Oakland Eastside All-Stars Jazz Band).
We are particularly proud of our latest partnership with the Actors’ Reading Collective supporting their mission:
Our mission is to share the artistic, spiritual, and emotional passion uniquely inherent to theater and storytelling. ARC is actor-inspired, -shaped, and -driven: a collective molded by our mutual efforts and member input. We’re deeply committed to changing the way BIPOC members are cast, and practice gender and age inclusion in an attempt to move our mutual humanity forward, to listen to what is needed, and what is lacking. We challenge ourselves to change. Our goal is to help support our members, many of whom have been severely impacted by the Covid-19. Pandemic with loss of jobs, funds, and health insurance, through this crisis and beyond. Through our streaming channel, we seek to reach a larger audience for our readings and to present some of it for local theaters and Arts organizations, thereby creating opportunity, and providing a space for collaboration and potential.