Music, Visual Arts and Creative Arts Residencies foster both creativity and collaboration:

• Past music residencies have featured such outstanding visitors as Israel’s King David String Ensemble and Artists and Musicians for Israel (including the rock-and-soul group Reva l’Sheva); violin virtuosi Frank Almond, Alexander Shonert, and Robert Davidovici; and instrumentalist Joey Weisenberg and his trio.
  • These gifted artists and educators have performed for and worked with a wide range of audiences and participants across the community in settings ranging from schools to assisted living facilities and from community centers to concert halls.
  • A few examples of their memorable contributions have been concerts for diverse audiences including: Former Soviet Union elderly at the Helen Bader Concert Hall of the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee’s Zelazo Center and Youth Arts Hall of the Milwaukee Youth Arts Center; participatory experiences for groups ranging from JCC pre-school classes to residential care elderly; and a joint workshop for Hebrew students from Nicolet High School and the City of Milwaukee’s Community High School.
• RUACH’s visual arts residencies with lead sponsorship from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund
  • Recent visual arts residencies have featured local artist/educators Sally Duback, Karen Reiffman and Pessa Kayla Finn working with agencies throughout Milwaukee’s Jewish community to produce a multi-media DVD of Jewish stories, using animation, narration, and other techniques.
  • Four artists participated in previous years’ residencies, including puppeteer Jeffrey Holub, metal artist Seth Tyler and artist-educators Sally Duback and Pessa Kayla Finn.
  • Varied Jewish institutions participated in the previous years’ residencies, including the Jewish Home and Care Center’s residential care facilities (Chai Point and the Sarah Chudnow Campus); the Harry and Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center; five of Milwaukee’s major Jewish schools, including Yeshiva Elementary School, Hillel Academy, Milwaukee Jewish Day School, Torah Academy of Milwaukee and the Wisconsin Institute for Torah Study; and the Coalition for Jewish Learning.
  • Among the highlights of these residencies was the creation of four brilliant mural panels now housed at the Karl Jewish Community Campus, under the umbrella of RUACH and the Coalition of Jewish Learning, by students from all of the five participating Jewish day schools.
  • RUACH is currently working on Project: Positive Speech, its third set of visual arts residencies sponsored by the Greater Milwaukee Foundation’s Mary L. Nohl Fund, to be held over the Spring and Summer of 2012.  Stay tuned for more details in the near future!