Nina Stern

"The members of the Rose of the Compass displayed impeccable early- and world-music credentials."

To read the entire review, click on the link below.

I returned just a few days ago from Nairobi, the last stop on an inspirational and highly productive trip to East Africa. I was engaged in two separate projects, in Burundi and in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya.

I traveled to Burundi with four other educators and musicians from the U.S. and the Netherlands. Partnering with an extraordinary organization, Village Health Works (http://www.villagehealthworks.org), we worked to establish a music school in the town of Kigutu. Training staff members in the mornings and 100 children in the afternoons, we introduced instrumental music playing (based on my “Recorders Without Borders” method) and fundamentals of Western music through the Montessori method. The newly trained staff members (all of whom had some degree of prior music training) are now charged with continuing the project into the future and have already established a schedule of music classes for the children and additional training sessions for themselves. During our stay, the Village Health Works children’s groups also shared their extraordinary traditional dancing and drumming traditions with us. Our ten-day program culminated in an extraordinary event, a concert of music and dance for the entire Kigutu community and beyond. The U.S. ambassador, the representative of the U.N. to Burundi, and a representative of UNICEF attended and were all visibly impressed and moved by the concert. It was a great day for Village Health Works.

I traveled on to Nairobi to continue my work at the FAFU School in Kibera. Partnering with Cross Cultural Thresholds (http://www.crossculturalthresholds.org/), I established a music program there one year ago. We have a team of young teachers – themselves residents of the slum – who have been in training with me over Skype and in my two visits to the school. I was overjoyed to see that the young music educators-in-training had successfully begun to teach some young pupils in the interim. They have achieved great things in an extremely difficult environment; I am so proud of them!

Both of these projects are connected to S’Cool Sounds partner schools in NYC, through an exchange of music, writing, artwork and ideas.

Performance of the Bulgarian tune "Bucimis"

Performing 14th century estampie "Petrone" with
Daphna Mor (recorder) and Shane Shanahan (percussion)

Thanks!

(And don't forget to "like" it!)

Nina presented sessions on "Recorders Without Borders" and Recorder Technique, and a Recorder Master Class at the American Orff-Schulwerk Association's National Conference in Pittsburgh from November 10-12. Nina also performed, together with percussionist Peter Maund, for an enthusiastic audience of over a thousand people at the convention concert on Friday, November 11th.

"Rose of the Compass" is featured on "Harmonia Early Music",
an early music radio show on Indiana Public Radio.

""Rose of the Compass" is now available for purchase at:
www.CDBaby.com

and can be downloaded at:
ITunes

Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-music&field-keywords=nina+stern&x=17&y=14)
and
Digstation (http://www.digstation.com/AlbumDetails.aspx?albumID=ALB000077711)

My new album "Rose of the Compass" will be released on June 7th.
Please come celebrate with me:
June 7th, at 7:30PM, at Drom in the East Village, NYC, 85 Avenue A (b/w 5th & 6th)

Early Music America magazine recently reviewed Michael Maniaci's newly released recording of Arias for Male Soprano:
"'Parto, ma tu ben mio' pairs him [Mr. Maniaci] with a virtuosic clarinet (Nina Stern). This instrument, comparatively new in Mozart's day, gambols with the vocal line, aiding Sesto in enticing his lover to forgive him."
(Volume 16, Number 3, Fall 2010)

Please visit the new S'Cool Sounds website which includes a newly-made
four and a half minute video about the innovative music program for school
classrooms. Nina Stern, the program's Artistic Director, founded the program
in 2002. (See "In the Schools")

On June 18th, 2010, traveled to Nairobi, Kenya.
Working in collaboration with S’Cool Sounds, the music education program she founded in New York City in 2002, and Cross Cultural Thresholds, an organization working to feed and educate nearly 300 of the most vulnerable children in the Kibera Slum of Nairobi, Nina introduced her approach to the group study of instrumental music to young children and their teachers in Kenya.

For four days Nina worked with over one hundred children at the "Drug Fighters School" in Kibera. During the months leading up to this trip, Nina worked to link two New York City school communities to the project: The AmPark Neighborhood School and The Fieldston Lower School, both in the Bronx. Children in the three communities got to know each other through musical and personal exchange. The children of the AmPark and Fieldston Lower schools had the opportunity to meet in person, collaborating on a musical project which they shared with their global partner in Kenya through letter-writing and video exchange. Through the use of technology, the three communities are working to create a collective musical offering. The project is an investment in the future of the children in Kibera and in New York City.

The goal of this exciting new initiative is to develop a lasting relationship between these communities, using music to learn about different world cultures and helping the children to appreciate the complex world in which we live.

Go to the "In the Schools" page to view or download "The Recorder Takes a Stand", an article about Nina's work in Kenya.

For bookings, please contact Senior Artist Representative Wendy Redlinger by email at wredlinger@gemsny.org or by telephoning (802) 254-6189.

Volume II in the "Recorders Without Borders" series contains 13 traditional tunes from
around the world arranged for recorders and percussion. This volume comes with a play-along CD featuring Nina Stern on recorders and Shane Shanahan on percussion.

To purchase this item, launch related site below.

"The presentation at Towson University's Center for the Arts, an ideal space in acoustics and atmosphere for Pro Musica, focused on German baroque composers and had the considerable advantage of Nina Stern's virtuosity on the recorder. She coaxed myriad shadings from the instrument in a solo Fantasia by Telemann and blended beautifully with Whear, violinist Cynthia Roberts and harpsichordist Avi Stein in trio sonatas by Telemann and Handel." (Tim Smith, The Baltimore Sun, 10/6/08)

Nina Stern, together with percussionist Mauricio Molina, takes her "Flutes and Drums" program to schools and the local chapter of the American Recorder Society in Austin Texas.
(Please go to "In the Schools" to download a PDF of an article reporting on these workshops.)

Nina Stern's new book for beginning recorder players and percussion,
published by Sweet Pipes. The book contains twelve original compositions
in the styles of traditional music from around the world.

To purchase this book, call or fax Sweet Pipes at:
(800) 446 1067 - Telephone
(800) 576 7608 - Fax
or launch related site below

Available for purchase at
CDbaby.com
(http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sternmor) and
Digstation.com
(http://www.digstation.com/ArtistAlbums.aspxalbumID=ALB000005854)

Nina Stern and Daphna Mor began playing together several years ago and immediately felt a unique musical bond. While they have been hired often to play standard repertory with established early music ensembles and prestigious orchestras like The New York Philharmonic, they also share a passion for exploring new repertory and new horizons for the recorder. Nina and Daphna became especially interested in the music of Armenia and the Balkans, finding that that repertory was especially suited to their instrument. Balkan music's virtuosic rhythms and exciting tempi lend themselves to the fleet recorder and the soulfulness of the Armenian repertory is well suited to the plaintive sound of the instrument. In "East of the River", Daphna and Nina invited their favorite musicians from New York City's classical, jazz and world music backgrounds to collaborate with them. Jazz bass player Omer Avital who has been called "the poet of the bass", composer/accordionist Uri Sharlin and percussionist Tomer Tzur each added his own unique talents and flavor to "East of the River".

On performance of "Parto, parto" from "La Clemenza di Tito" with male soprano Michael Maniaci and Boston Baroque:

"Maniaci sang with a beautiful, long line, to the lovely obbligato accompaniment of clarinetist Nina Stern."

By David Perkins, Globe Correspondent

On Boston Baroque's performance of Vivaldi's "Juditha Triumphans":

"For many of the individual arias, Vivaldi carves out wonderfully distinctive worlds unto themselves, often by pulling out solo instruments from the orchestra. Most extraordinary on Saturday night, the second of two performances, was the moving aria "Veni, veni, me sequere fida" in which Juditha compares her lament to that of a turtle dove, and from the orchestra arises the remarkable voice of the chalumeau, a clarinet-like instrument with a more reedy but beautiful and yes, dove-like, timbre as expertly rendered by Nina Stern ."

By Jeremy Eichler, Globe Staff

"While recorders surely have an established place in classroom learning, recorder virtuosa Nina Stern has shown that there's more to it than just helping kids learn to "tootle" a few easy tunes. In 2002, Stern, who performs extensively and has taught college students, began teaching 250 children from the Ella Baker Public School in Manhattan, connecting them to cultures where they have their roots as well as to music from its earliest beginnings to the 21st century. She expects excellence and makes it possible for all students to learn and succeed."

Sarasa helped us celebrate Mozart’s 250th birthday in January 2006, with this performance of his “Kegelstatt” Trio, K.498. The players are: Nina Stern, clarinet Jennifer Stirling, viola Maggie Cole, fortepiano Sarasa is a chamber music en ...

"The repertoire [Nina Stern] introduces to youngsters from the Bronx and Harlem reaches back centuries and around the world, to cultures where the students have their roots. There are songs from the Caribbean, Asia and Africa, as well as American spirituals, pieces from the 12th century and, coming soon, Renaissance works -- all selected to be rhythmically and melodically interesting enough to appeal to children who know only hip-hop.
Recorder music wafts through the school at breakfast time as children grab time to practice, and at lunch, when Stern often gives extra instruction to those who want it. Some pull out their instruments as they wait for the bus to take them home. They all take great care of their brightly colored plastic recorders -- which are end-blown flutes -- tucking them into book bags to keep them safe."