One of NPR Alt.Latino’s four 2018 picks for New Spring Music, Eleanor Dubinsky is a “multilingual musician who can capture the emotions and soul of a community in a song.” (NPR Weekend Edition). A vocalist, guitarist and cellist, Dubinsky writes and performs in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese. Her presentation of original songs alongside her multifaceted band is an engaging blend of world-beats, jazz and pop music met with emotionally forthright songwriting. In the words of Tom Pryor (Songlines, Afropop) expect “A joyous, uplifting and deeply generous performance…this is music as medicine for your soul.”
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Our Voices, Our Songs
Our Voices, Our Songs (OVOS) — a series of community-based advocacy, professional development, and songwriting workshops conceived by Eleanor Dubinsky and facilitated in partnership with community leaders and music professionals. OVOS aims to amplify and empower emerging artists’ voices via foregrounding their lived experiences in a shared songwriting process, resulting in the creation of original, professionally recorded songs rooted in personal and community narrative. Each OVOS program is adapted with local partners and program participants as a unique iteration relevant to those involved.
OVOS takes place virtually or in-person two times per week over a period of 12 – 16 weeks. Sessions are held in small groups (5 – 20 people), with additional one-on-one sessions with participants as needed. Thus far, OVOS has been a virtual program conducted in Spanish and English, with facilitators in NYC and participants and local partners in Argentina. In winter-spring 2021, a second virtual version of OVOS will take place between NYC and La Ceiba, Honduras, co-directed with iconic Garifuna songwriter/community leader Aurelio Martinez in partnership with the Organización de Desarrollo Étnico Comunitario (ODECO), a Honduran NGO and non-profit organization founded and led by Afro-descendant women and men advocating for community development, economic, social, political and cultural rights and fighting systematic marginalization and exclusion from the country’s development processes. ODECO fosters alliances, respecting cultural diversity and solidarity amongst people. Honduras OVOS is supported by Arts Envoy, the cultural exchange program of the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, and by the US Embassy, Tegucigalpa.
Photo by DelPazzo Studios