Ep.56 Amplifying Voices: Fighting State Violence with Jazz

Albert Marqués is a skilled jazz musician from Barcelona, Spain, a public-school music teacher in Brooklyn, New York, and a creative social justice activist.  In this episode, he and host Desire Wandan focus on his program “Amplifying Voices” which brings musicians together with victims of state violence to create platforms for them to tell their stories to the wider world.  “Amplifying Voices” has worked with, among others, death row prisoners, Holocaust survivors, and Jason Fulford, the cousin of Eric Garner who was choked to death by New York City police officers in 2014.  “Music creates an atmosphere, a vibe, that allows walls to come down and for people to connect and listen to each other as human beings,” says Marqués.  “I want to use music against power to create power.”

Albert's website www.albertmarques.com/amplify

Book: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/el-jazz-suena-en-el-corredor-de-la-muerte-albert-marqu-s/1143693137

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Welcome to All Power to the Developing, a podcast of the East Side Institute. The Institute is a center for social change efforts that reinitiate human and community development. We support, connect, and partner with committed and creative activists, scholars, artists, helpers, and healers all over the world. In 2003, Institute co-founders Lois Holzman and the late Fred Newman had a paper published with the title “All Power to the Developing.” This phrase captures how vital it is for all people—no matter their age, circumstance, status, race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation—to grow, develop and transform emotionally, socially and intellectually if we are to have a shot at creating something positive out of the intense crises we’re all experiencing. We hope that this podcast series will show you that, far more than a slogan, “all power to the developing” is a loving activity, a pulsing heart in an all too cruel world.

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The East Side Institute is a hub for a diverse and emergent community of social activists, thought leaders, and practitioners who are reigniting our human abilities to imagine, create and perform beyond ourselves—to develop.  Each episode will introduce you to another performance activist or play revolutionary from around the world.

 

To learn more about the East Side Institute you can go to https://eastsideinstitute.org/

 

Made possible in part by Growing Social Therapeutics: The Baylah Wolfe Fund.