In 2016, while earning his doctorate in music at the University of Southern California, Alexander Lloyd Blake founded the choral group Tonality. His initial aim was to create a choral ensemble that would represent and celebrate the full diversity of Los Angeles’ population. That done, Tonality started to focus each concert on social-justice issues, from global warming to gun violence, always providing audiences with an array of resources to encourage activism and change.

Tonality’s repertoire is as varied as its membership, ranging from Gregorian chant to contemporary pieces in a variety of styles and genres, but Alex’s commitment to harnessing the power of choral music to foment social change has remained central. In just eight years, Tonality has garnered nationwide attention. In 2020 Tonality received the Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, and in 2022 Alex and Tonality’s work were featured on “The Kelly Clarkson Show.” They’ve released two albums, and just this past spring, Tonality won its first Grammy for performing on composer Carla Patullo’s album “So She Howls.”

The ensemble has collaborated with a number of world-renowned composers, including Reena Esmail and Michael Giacchino, and has performed with such artists as Pete Townsend, Lara Downes and Björk. They have also sung for TV and film soundtracks, including “Space Jam: a New Legacy.”

Here Alex explains what led him to found Tonality and details the intricacies of leading a choral ensemble that has to remain increasingly nimble and focused.

https://www.ourtonality.org/

https://alexanderlblake.com/

Costume designer Kristen P Ahern has been thinking about sustainability since childhood, when her parents, her mother in particular, instilled in her a passion for environmental responsibility. As an adult, she has centered that passion in her art, in 2018 founding Conscious Costume, an information-and-resources clearinghouse with a clear vision: “Every costume created in harmony with people and planet.”

Although Kristen now lives in Pittsburgh, PA, she still has deep roots in Chicago, where she designed for several theaters and also managed a few costume shops in the area. Chicago is also where Conscious Costume’s costumes-rental facility continues to operate, giving area designers and theaters greater access to reusable materials and costumes. It is also in Chicago that Kristen, during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, created Artist Resource Mobilization (ARM), an organization that matched out-of-work designers and costume-shop artists with mask-production opportunities. In the pandemic’s most dire year and a half, Artist Resource Mobilization was able to provide garment artists with $35,000.

In this interview, Kristen explains what responsible costume design and production entails and offers a primer in how designers and costume shops can take small-to-large steps to ensure they protect the well-being of their onstage and behind-the-scenes artists as well as the environment.

https://www.kristenp.com/

https://www.consciouscostume.com/

Of all the tasks to undertake in the current arts climate, leading a brand-new multimillion-dollar performing-arts center through its opening and first season must be one of the most daunting. Yet, Bill Rauch, the inaugural artistic director of the Perelman Arts Center (usually referred to as PAC NYC) in Lower Manhattan managed to launch with a bang through an astonishing array of music, dance, theater and opera performances. He also capped the first season with a personal triumph, co-directing with Zhailon Levingston an inventive reimagining of the musical “Cats” set in New York’s drag ballroom scene. The production, titled “Cats: The Jellicle Ball,” garnered enthusiastic reviews and was immediately extended.

Although Bill has decades of experience as an artistic director and producer, his previous posts were markedly different from the current. Right out of college, he founded Cornerstone Theater Company, a firmly community-centered company that was initially nomadic, creating theater with and for small and often rural towns before it put down roots in Los Angeles in 1992. Cornerstone continued to make homegrown community-partnered theater in Los Angeles as well as in satellite projects around the country.

Then in 2007 Bill became the artistic director of Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which is a bit of a unicorn in the American theater ecosystem as one of the very few theaters in the U.S. with a full-time acting company. It is also one of a handful of destination theaters in North America, with patrons traveling from all over the country to rural Southern Oregon to enjoy a theatrical vacation. At OSF, while still centering Shakespeare’s works, Bill diversified the theater’s offerings and bolstered its new-play development program.

“Art Restart” was eager to speak with Bill to learn how he has adapted his heavily community-centered vision to the demands of leading New York’s newest cultural landmark, which opened during a particularly perilous time for so many of the city’s performing-arts institutions. Here he describes why and how PAC can thrive in today’s New York as a singularly welcoming hub for the countless communities throughout New York City and its environs.

https://pacnyc.org/

https://pacnyc.org/bio/bill-rauch/