Teaching Artist Legacy Statement
As digital music teaching artists, we enrich academic subjects with the innovative world of music production. We explore sound design, beat-making, recording, and mixing across genres like Hip Hop, R&B, Pop, Soul, and Gospel. Using digital audio workstations, MIDI controllers, and virtual instruments, we make music both accessible and captivating.
Our focus on collaboration and improvisation fosters a dynamic blend of creativity and technical skill. By integrating music into academic learning, we inspire students to connect their studies with their passions, nurturing a love for music and technology that empowers them to express their unique voices and think creatively.
| Component Type | |
| Grades | |
| First Language | English |
| Other Languages | None |
| Professional Links |
Testimonials
- Student, Grade 4, Rotella Interdistrict Magnet, Waterbury, CT
"My favorite part of working with Nate and Marcus and Hosea was when we shared out our projects I liked it because they helped me and I had a lot off compliments"
- Student, Grade 6, Conte West Hills Magnet School, New Haven, CT
Description
This program explores the cultural lineage connecting blues, jazz, and rap, showing students how Black music has carried history, identity, resilience, and community across generations. Through live music, storytelling, improvisation, rhythm, movement, and lyric writing, students discover the shared traditions of call and response, repetition, testimony, and creative expression.
Workshop
In a single interactive workshop, students explore the connections between blues, jazz, and rap through live music and hands-on activities. Students may experiment with call and response, improvisation, rhythm, storytelling, movement, or lyric writing while learning how these musical traditions have been used to express identity, emotion, struggle, joy, and community.
Residency
A multi-session residency allows students to explore blues, jazz, and rap in greater depth. Students investigate the history and cultural context of each tradition while building skills in improvisation, songwriting, rhythm, storytelling, and ensemble work. Across the residency, students make connections between the genres and explore how music can support creativity, self-expression, collaboration, and emotional well-being.
School-Wide Performance
This lively school-wide performance brings the history and evolution of blues, jazz, and rap to life through live music, storytelling, and audience participation. Nate Barnes, Heshima Moja, and Hosea Dorvil demonstrate how these connected musical traditions have transformed across generations while continuing to serve as powerful forms of cultural expression, community, and storytelling.
More Arts Workshops with this Artist
 | MISSION The mission of Higher Order Thinking Schools is to close the opportunity gap in Connecticut by providing a well-rounded education for all students in, about, and through the arts. | OUTCOMES Enriching School Culture | CONTACTS Christopher Eaves |