Maya Keren: 2020 Trenton Arts at Princeton Music Fellow
Maya Keren conducting students of the Jazz and Creative Music Club at Trenton High School, 2020.
Composer, pianist, and vocalist Maya Keren was awarded the 2020 Trenton Arts in Princeton Music Fellowship, a new grant supported by the Dudamel Foundation which is awarded annually to Princeton University students who serve their local communities through arts and music.
Please tell us how you became involved with Trenton Arts in Princeton and the Trenton Youth Orchestra (TYO).
Maya Keren (MK): I heard about TYO through my roommate, a cellist and TYO teacher, when I was a freshman. I had also heard about Lou Chen, TYO’s musical director, and the amazing work he had been doing for the last several years with TCHS students. I reached out to Lou to ask if there was any need for jazz teachers in the program, and he thought there could be interest and that it could help to support more wind players. He told me about a new Fellowship program through Trenton Arts in Princeton, so I submitted my proposal for the Jazz and Creative Music Club, which got accepted, and I began teaching in Trenton in January 2020.
Why did you decide to design the Jazz and Creative Music Club?
MK: I thought a lot about my own experience of falling in love with music and about the key moments that challenged me artistically. I realized that most of these moments occured during (free) youth music education programs in Philadelphia like the Creative Music Program run by Anthony Tidd and the Settlement Music School led by Tony Miceli. I hoped to share this love with younger students and to expose them to creative music. Although I wanted to connect around the common ground of music, I hoped to forge meaningful relationships with students that were much more expansive.
Can you tell us about your program design?
MK: At TCHS, two educators — Mr. Joseph Pucciati and Mr. Ted Plunkett — had already formed a rigorous music education program involving all different types of music, from classical to jazz to pop. My work was to supplement the already thriving music program at TCHS by teaching students more about improvising and writing their own music.
I designed a 12-week program on a semester basis after working closely with my mentor at Princeton, Dr. Trineice Robinson-Martin. I recruited a few musician friends from Princeton — bassist Akiva Jacobs, guitarist Jeffrey Gordon, and drummer Ben Alessio, to name a few — to help teach and act as a backup band for students to play with.
The first half of the program was about cultivating tools and learning strategies for improvising and playing together in a group setting. The students learned ways you can take, for instance, the blues form, and write your song about something you’re dealing with. The second half was all about students’ own creative process. For example, we started to do poetry free-writes and put those words to music for a final performance.
We made it through part one, but didn’t move to part two because the COVID-19 pandemic hit in mid-March. I’m hoping to finish the second part when we resume in-person, but for such a new program, it’s very difficult without the groundwork and really, the trust that comes from a long period of working together.
What makes teaching jazz unique?
MK: Jazz is built on a lineage of relationships, a tradition passed down both orally and through sound. I hoped to create a space that was about connecting music-making to who we are as people, and also about tracing these lineages through time, crediting the Black artists who made this music what it is today.
I also thought a lot about my role in teaching Black American music (with three white men) to mostly Black and Latinx kids. I am still grappling with the reality that I want to share the beauty and power I feel from this music while keeping in mind that I don’t have the lived experience of a Black person in the United States.
In this program, I aimed to highlight the voices of Black artists and also asked my students about their own backgrounds and experiences to figure out what they felt was meaningful or resonant. Black American music has taught me that there is immense revolutionary power in each of us that can be amplified by collective organization, and I hoped to experience this truth with my students.
What are you most proud of or what brought you the most joy and feeling of accomplishment?
MK: Right before we shut down, I felt like the students were really starting to get into their own ideas and musical processes, which was what I ultimately wanted to create a space for. I think a few of the quieter students were opening up and showing me the music they were making, and I was so excited to see where this creative energy could go.
What are your plans for the future of the Club? Would you replicate the idea in other places?
MK: I’m hoping to continue the Club for the next two years, and I also hope to continue teaching and pursuing mutual mentorship after I graduate.
What did you learn from this experience?
MK: I’ve learned so much from these kids. They are so wise… they’ve taught me about things like how to guess someone’s sign and how to make the best chocolate chip cookies. (Laughs) But they’ve also taught me how to be a better teacher and friend -- how to connect with someone no matter where they’re at.
Finally, what message would you send to young musicians in the United States and around the world today?
MK: You don't have to be anything that someone tells you to be, or that you feel society expects of you. What you find beautiful and what resonates with you is meaningful, and your honest voice is potent and sublime. You and your art are powerful. You have the capacity for enormous change.
For more information about Maya Keren and to hear her music, please visit her website at mayakerenmusic.com.
About the Trenton Arts in Princeton Music Fellowship
The Trenton Arts in Princeton Music Fellowship is supported by a five-year grant from the Dudamel Foundation given to Princeton University in 2019. A new grant will be awarded every year through 2025 to Princeton University students in order to serve their local communities through arts and music.
