Author: Bill Lord, Executive Director

Fall Semester 2019 is underway, and this means partnerships and student interns! We have an amazing group of schools we are working with this Fall.

We have begun working with a student intern from the Academy for the Fine Arts, Frederick County Public Schools:

https://education.fcps.org/aca/home

Our student is working on a couple of cool tasks for us. First, as our Phase II Project is geared toward recording Native American students across the US and Canada, we are seeking to anticipate what microphones might be well suited to ship to our Phase II musicians who play a specific instrument. Our intern is recording a bunch of instruments with our mics to help us discover what the mics’ characteristics are and how they might best be utilized during Phase II.

Next, he will be recording in a public school environment, and tasked with finding ways to sound treat common school spaces for recording with readily available materials. Think of it as a way to create a mobile recording studio on the cheap.

We look forward to discovering what he uncovers!

We were thrilled to be selected to participate in USA Today’s ‘A Community Thrives’ fundraising campaign. The campaign has come to a close, and we wish to express our gratitude to those who contributed $375.00 to this fundraiser.

While we did not reach our fundraising goal, our participation in such an event was a tremendous opportunity for us to get our name and mission out to the greater public. In addition, we gained experience with what is required to participate in a crowd-fundraising campaign.

Certainly, the $375 is greatly appreciated and will be put to good use as we move forward with new ideas and strategies to generate the necessary funds to launch and maintain our global projects! With thanks.

The Global Z Recording Project has been accepted to participate in USA Today’s ‘A Community Thrives’ Fundraising Challenge! Through the challenge, our goal is to raise $60,000 with which we will run our Phase II Project.

https://www.crowdrise.com/o/en/campaign/global-z-recording-project-maryland

Our North America Native Music Project is quite humbling.

One out of three Native youth live in poverty and suffer from a wide range of personal, socio-cultural challenges including single motherhood, teen pregnancy, sexual abuse, and substance abuse, joblessness, failing educational systems, inadequate healthcare, violence against women and children, and an epidemic of youth suicide in Native communities.

Music plays a spiritual and healing role in the Native cultures. You can see the potential impact we might have by taking this Project to youth who are truly in need.

Help us purchase and provide audio production and video equipment to the Native musicians via donation. This Project will shine a spotlight on incredibly talented Native student musicians across the US and Canada. With your help. we can provide them with a chance to create cross-Tribal friendships, create an extended support network, provide a source of healing, and give them a way to have a public voice and be acknowledged for their musical expertise. You can help instill a sense of pride and value.

Please spread the word about our challenge and the good work we are doing so that others may learn about Global Z, and, so we might expand our range of potential donors.

Our 2019 Phase II North America Native Music Project takes the power of virtual audio production to Tribal reservations and Native American Tribal communities across North America! Pivoting off of lessons learned from our Phase I Proof of Concept Project, we are opening up participation to all Native student musicians enrolled in a school that focuses or has a history of serving Native American communities.

There is much more to announce, so stay tuned!

We are honored to be working with the Native American Community Academy (NACA).

http://nacaschool.org/

NACA’s Executive Director, Mr. Anpao Duta Flying Earth, has agreed to collaborate with us with his students on an upcoming project that requires an understanding and perspective of Native people. We truly look forward to working with Duta and his students throughout 2019.

What happens when you recruit 34 student musicians who vary in age from middle school to graduate school, live across Maryland and Colorado at various locales, and you decide to record them virtually in real-time to produce a commercial-quality original song? You get The Global Z Recording Project’s Phase I Proof of Concept Project.

Global Z is designed to do two primary things. We bring together student musicians from intentionally different backgrounds and – through the music production process – they make new friends while exploring differences in cultures. We promote civility & democratic processes, celebrate diversity, and teach peace-mindedness. We also create exceptional original music.

Phase I tested our technical models. This was not an easy project with numerous steep learning curves. But, everyone involved believed in what we are doing and was excited to be participating. And, everyone was patient while the production team worked out the bugs. We are thrilled with the end result and hope you enjoy, ‘Come Home.’

Many thanks to all who contributed to this incredible success.

Please get in touch if you would like to sponsor or help fund Phase II.

The Global Z Recording Project is honored to be working with Todd Rundgren’s Spirit of Harmony Foundation (SOHF)! Todd is an incredible visionary, musician, talent, and a positive force in the field of music. My personal thanks to Jean and Ed at SOHF for the kindness and interest they have extended in working with Global Z. SOHF is doing some incredible work. We are excited to explore how our shared love of music and collaborative energies contribute to benefits we will be able to provide to our future exceptional student artists!

The past ten days, I have sat down with Dr. Jonathan Cresci to assemble the final mix of our Phase I song, ‘Come Home.’ Folks, it is sounding really good! Jon is going to do work his magic to come up with a final mix/master. We are on schedule to wrap up the song by end of January! Almost done!

“Welcome” to Dr. Jonathan Cresci to our Board of Directors! Jon is officially our Director of Audio Production. Global Z has benefited from Jon’s production assistance over the past many months, and he brings a tremendous depth of knowledge and experience. We are thrilled to have him  as a member of our team.

We are once again thrilled to be working with a graduate student team from the University of New Mexico OILS (Organization, Information and Learning Sciences) program for the Spring 2019 semester.

https://oils.unm.edu/

Under the guidance of Dr. Damien Sanchez, these talented students will be working to further develop our Phase II Learning Management System and collaborate with our subject matter expert scholars to design related content.