Courses and Classes
MUSI 2559/3559: Music Performance and Community Engagement
University of Virginia, Summer 2021, Session I (May 24-June 17)
This course outlines different ways to engage with one's community through music performance. It covers everything from busking, curating a concert series, forming your own not-for-profit performance organization, to forming a chamber ensemble with a social mission. The course will be divided between studying existing successful organizations and ensembles and the planning of the student's own project.
Additional information about the course is forthcoming. For immediate inquiries, please contact Dr. Ambrose.
Professional Partnerships
In addition to her role as Assistant Professor of Horn at the University of Virginia, Dr. Ambrose works with a number of performing arts groups demonstrating and teaching French horn.
Presentations
Performing with a Purpose: Community Engagement that Endures
Co-presentation with Dr. Lauren Hunt
International Horn Symposium, Ghent, Belgium, July 2019
Northeast Horn Workshop, Hofstra University, February 2019
James Madison University, January 2019
In this presentation, we talk about creating diverse, interesting, forward-thinking, and inclusive musical experiences, and also how to take advantage of the unique opportunities that technology affords us. Our talk is especially relevant for those of us who were educated for 20th century careers, but by the time we graduated and began our own careers in the 21st century the world had shifted greatly. The two of us are both conservatory-trained horn players who teach at universities and perform with various orchestras. But we are also arts entrepreneurs and teaching artists with diverse careers who have worked with community engagement programs, performed and designed interactive concerts, and started ensembles from the ground up. As there are fewer orchestral positions available, due to longer careers, budgetary cuts, cultural apathy, and a larger pool of eligible players, music students have collectively found themselves in the strange situation of being unprepared for our careers outside of a narrow lens. Our goal for this presentation is for everyone to leave with new ideas for cultivating a purposeful, fulfilling, impactful career through lasting relationships with other musicians and their community.