Archipelago Project

ARCHIPELAGO PROJECT: 10 DAYS TO GREAT

Former residents’ world-hopping music camp turns TC into a rockin’ cultural exchange each summer

By Ross Boissoneau

When Dan Trahey and Garrett Mendez were attending school in Traverse City, they had dreams of playing music in their postschool careers. They were able to achieve that goal: The musical experiences of the tubist and trombonist, respectively, range from performing with orchestras and brass bands to playing chamber music and world music. They’ve traveled the world, from the U.S. to Europe, South America — and come right back to Traverse City.

The two are the founders of the Archipelago Project, a nonprofit music education organization dedicated to advocating musical arts through performance, residency, and consultation. Together with Education Director Armand Hall, they work with youngsters from all walks of life. Not only are all kids welcome, so is all music. “Music is experiential. We want kids to interpret society the way they see it,” says Trahey.

The word diversity might be the linchpin for the Archipelago Project. On its website, the organization defines its mission: “to connect, educate, and inspire audiences from diverse ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic populations.”

“We believe in diverse music,” Trahey says. “We grew up here and saw the inspiration of marching band, symphonic band, musicals, folk music.”

That in turn inspired him to share such disparate influences with others, and led to welcoming new music from the students themselves. “‘Ode to Joy’ won’t resonate in [inner city] Baltimore,” he says. “So we started writing our own music.”

While the organization was founded in Traverse City and returns here each summer, the goal is to involve and inspire students from across the globe. While maintaining their own professional music careers, Trahey and Mendez work with various schools and cultural organizations during the school year. The project’s residencies and workshops have taken place as near as Farmington, Michigan, and as far away as Austria and Venezuela.

They relish the chance to return to their home base each summer for what amounts to an alumni reunion, the Archipelago Musical Leadership Academy and Performance Series. The intense camp is a kind of musical melting pot and cultural exchange that brings together local students and many from around the country in an immersive musical experience that guides them through the rigors of writing, rehearsing, and performing together in just 10 days.

The Archipelago approach to songwriting is markedly different from that of the stereotypical solitary composer. “It’s not one person with the music or a riff or lyrics,” Trahey says. He says that collective approach is especially unique as it’s done while playing orchestral instruments — trumpet, trombone, clarinet, and more — rather than a guitar or piano, as would be more common.

He says the collective method has a critical purpose: He and Mendez want to demystify the writing process for the students. “You don’t have to be Mahler in a cabin in Austria,” Trahey says. “We validate other music and tastes.

“The students are writing sophisticated [material]. We just teach them how to express themselves. We want to unlock their creativity. It breaks down preconceived notions of what’s good.”

The democratic ideals of the program mean that everyone’s ideas are welcome, no matter their age, experience, instrument, or musical background. All the students contribute to the creation of the music.

Trahey, Mendez, and Hall aren’t satisfied with simply helping kids write their own music. They want the students to be tackle performing it live, too. But with the residency being so limited in time, there isn’t time to write several tunes, rehearse them for weeks, and then perform a show. Instead, the students write, have one day of rehearsal, and then go out and find an opportunity to play. Then they do it again.

“Our philosophy is: The art of performance is essential,” he says. “We make sure every year they have one day of rehearsal, then their first gig. We have gigs at Traverse City-area summery places, a lot of outdoor [shows].”

The pace plays a role in redefining what a musician requires to perform publicly and what’s possible.

“In a place like New Orleans, where we were recently, the culture is, ‘I need to make money. I play the trombone. Let’s go do it!’ You reimagine where the concert hall is.”

But don’t get the idea any performance is just thrown together. Despite the schedule’s high rate of speed, it is rigorous, and the students are well-schooled.

In addition to Trahey, Mendez, and Hall, students work with highly trained musicians, teachers, and artists from across the world. That’s in keeping with several of the organization’s missions: to inspire students and audiences from diverse ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic populations to make music a more important part of their lives; to promote student growth and development through the study, practice, and performance of music; and to develop students into musical ambassadors themselves. Archipelago’s emphasis on interaction with other students and music from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds and disciplines is key to broadening the overall vision and scope of the music the kids create, says Trahey. “Band, the poetry department, new media, we work with the English classes — you integrate them all together, and you get some weird stuff.”

Trahey says the organization typically works in large cities, where funding is easier to come by. Their goal is to offer programming in more sparsely populated areas, too, but they have to find grant or foundation monies, or donors — fewer and far between on the outskirts. “We’re predominately working in urban areas. I can put together a $50,000 residency in an urban area; that’s where the funding is,” he says. “Where is the funding for Benzie County? We want to get into the rural areas.”

For 10 days at the end of July and early August 2021, the Archipelago Project embarked into a new phase of its summer music camp in Traverse City, Michigan by hosting 20 students from the Baltimore Symphony OrchKids program, Project Music Stamford, and Bravo Waterbury. These students joined 20+ music students from local middle and high school programs for an intense 10-day music camp. Their focus: creating original compositions and jazz/pop arrangements.

Want to learn more about the organization and stay abreast of upcoming workshops? Check out www.archipelagoproject.org and be sure to click on Listen/Watch to link to their YouTube channel, where you can watch this summer’s Traverse City leadership academy students’ twist on Joe Avery’s Blues (we dare you not to move while this one plays), and several other Archipelago Project performances.