THE RIVERS ARE OUR BROTHERS
Music, Watersheds & the Stories That Connect Us
A Sounding the Wild Residency with Majel Connery
This fall, Arts For The Schools and Musica Sierra are joining forces with Sierra Watershed Education Partnerships (SWEP) to bring music, environmental science, storytelling, and outdoor learning together for students at Truckee Elementary School, Loyalton Middle School, and Sierra Expeditionary Learning Academy.
At the heart of the residency is acclaimed composer and performer Majel Connery’s The Rivers Are Our Brothers, an ecological song cycle that gives voice to the natural world. Rivers, clouds, trees, mountains, and water itself become storytellers, inviting students to consider how every part of a watershed—and every person living within it—is connected.
What happens upstream flows downstream.
Through live music and imaginative storytelling, students will explore:
Watersheds, hydrology, and the water cycle
Connections among rivers, wildlife, people, and communities
How water moves through interconnected natural systems
Cause and effect within local ecosystems
Environmental responsibility and water stewardship
Personification, metaphor, creative writing, and artistic expression
Expanding the Wonders of Watersheds
The residency will complement SWEP’s Wonders of Watersheds programming for fourth- and fifth-grade students. The Watershed Musical Field Journal will serve as the connective learning tool, helping students carry ideas from the live performance into their classroom and outdoor watershed studies.
Through original music, drawing, writing, observation, reflection, and nature-journaling prompts, students will be encouraged to:
Notice closely
Ask thoughtful questions
Make connections
Imagine from nature’s perspective
Understand their own place within the watershed
The experience will extend beyond the performance, giving teachers and students a shared resource for continued learning with SWEP throughout the year.
Students will not only learn how a watershed works—they will be invited to listen to its story.
Presented as part of Sounding the Wild, Arts For The Schools’ arts-integrated eco-literacy initiative connecting professional artists, classroom learning, environmental science, and the natural world.