UW Simpson Center: American Music Partnership of Seattle (AMPS)

Supporting

UW Graduate Internships at KEXP and EMP/SFM (Fall 2009 and Winter 2010)

Digital Archiving, an inter-institutional initiative to build accessible, shared archives, currently in pilot development through the documentation of the Seattle Fandango Project.

UW Gospel Choir, directed by Phyllis Byrdwell, enrolls 100+ students and performs songs of praise and revelation and other expressions of the gospel tradition in a community or university venue every quarter.

Jazz Residencies

Music Alive! in Yakima Valley
Music Alive! in Yakima Valley engages children and youth in the Mexican-American and Yakama Nation communities in musical exchanges — performances, participatory events, documentation of their musical expressions. Recipient of the 2009 Gunstream Award of The College Music Society for 'Music in Community' Achievement.

Major Projects

Seattle Fandango Project

The Seattle Fandango Project is dedicated to community building through participatory music and dance. SFP takes as its original model the fandango celebration of Veracruz, Mexico, in which music, singing, and dancing are used to generate a spirit of convivencia — living/being together — that helps build communication and trust.

Flash Required for Podcasts

Since the 1990s, musicians and community organizers in Veracruz and California have expanded the scope of convivencia through a transnational network of artists and community workers known as Fandango Sin Fronteras. SFP is drawing upon this network and its community-building practices to forge relationships between diverse institutions, communities, and individuals in Washington State. Activities for 2009-2010 include workshops and performances at university and community sites, and courses.

Pop Conference

The Pop Conference at EMP/ SFM, now is its ninth year, is an annual cultural event that joins performers, academics, journalists, music critics, and writers of all kinds in a rare common discussion. Scheduled for April 15-16, 2010, this year’s theme is The Pop Machine: Music and Technology. Proposals for panels and papers due Tuesday, December 15, 2009. Unorthodox proposals and proposals aimed at a general interest audience welcome.

Sound Documentaries

Produced by KEXP in collaboration with EMP and the UW, KEXP Documentaries bring you a musical subject in the time it takes to play just one song. Recent series include Psychedelics and The New World. New series slated for production include Seattle Fandango, The First Ladies of Jazz, and Songs of the Civil Rights Era. Most series are in ten parts and are available online.

American Sabor

Guest curators Michelle Habell-Pallán, Shannon Dudley and Marisol Berríos-Miranda. Photo: Kathy Sauber

A multi-year project of collaborative research between University of Washington faculty and graduate students, the Experience Music Project, and KEXP, American Sabor is the first-ever exhibit to manifest in detail the influence of Latinos within the currents of American popular music and social history. This interactive, educational exhibit opened to the Seattle public in October 2007 and is now traveling throughout the U.S. Learn more in articles from the Center's Newsletter and from University Week.

Collaboration

The American Music Partnership of Seattle (AMPS) supports collaboration among Experience Music Project, KEXP Radio, and the University of Washington.

AMPS emphasizes and promotes the role of music in local communities and lives, stretches the capacity of all three of the participating organizations, and provides each organization with a reliable network for music resources. It creates an institutional link between different modes of music education—radio programming, exhibitions, scholarship, and performance—that facilitates their integration and enhances their impact.

AMPS is funded by a generous grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation and administered by the Simpson Center for the Humanities at the University of Washington.