Emiliano Valdez and Michael Annotti, who both grew up in Hollister, said their musical paths had never crossed with longtime middle school music teacher Joe Ostenson, until recently. But the three musicians will be collaborating together on an ambitious project for the next year to revitalize downtown Hollister and tell stories of San Benito County through music.
Valdez and Annotti recently received a grant for $40,000 from the Creative Work Fund for performing artists. The pair will hold workshops where community members can share their stories about life in the county, with Mr. Ostenson’s jazz band performing some of the original songs Valdez and Annotti will write at Music in the Park in 2013.
San Benito has been eligible only recently for the Creative Work Fund grant, which alternates support each year between performing arts and traditional or visual artists. This year a few foundations provided money for the ArtPlace grant, which encourages art activities in economically distressed communities as a way to revitalize them. Some of the donors included The Ford Foundation, The James Irvine Foundation, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and eight other donors.
The competitive grant requires applicants to submit a letter of interest before they can be invited to apply. Valdez and Annotti were among about 25 applicants who were invited to apply this year, from 14 greater Bay Area counties.
Valdez said the idea for the project came to him around the time the Occupy movement started up.
“There has been a real absence of community voices through activism,” he said. “In the ’60s there was incredible change sparked by music.
“That’s were the idea first sparked.”
From there, he talked with Michael Annotti, a fellow musician. The two are both part of the band Somos, which will play world beats music at the Hollister Street Festival on Saturday. The two hit upon the idea of creating songs that would tell the story of the community. After they host the community workshops, they will write songs that touch on many aspects of the community, from a child’s eye view of the Saddle Horse Show and Parade to the lives of farm workers or the economic impact of the cannery through the years.
Connecting with Mr. O
It made sense to the duo to connect Ostenson, who is known as Mr. O by the many students who studied with him during his decades teaching middle school band. The goal is to promote Mr. O’s Academy of the Arts while also using it to spur activity in downtown Hollister. The San Benito Arts Council will be a fiscal manager for the grant.
Valdez and Annotti will arrange 10 songs for a recording in the studio Valdez has set up in one of the rooms at Mr. O’s Academy of the Arts, on Sixth Street. The pair also wanted a performance group that would be able to learn some of the music for a community event. Mr. O’s jazz band seemed to be the perfect fit.
The band practices on Thursday evenings and has a mix of musicians from middle school students to those who have been practicing for decades.
“It’s multigenerational,” Valdez said, of the band.
Jennifer Laine, the executive director of the San Benito County Arts Council, said it speaks to the level of talent in San Benito – that the local artists were able to compete with “major performing artists in San Francisco and Oakland.”
“To be considered in that group and then to get the award is a real accomplishment for the artists in our community,” Laine said.
Laine said it was noteworthy that the group received part of its grant through the ArtPlace program.
“They want to encourage creative place-making,” she said. “It acknowledges that arts have an intrinsic value and through arts we can revitalize the community.”
When she held an information session with the director of Creative Work Fund last October for interested artists, she said she invited Ostenson to the meeting. There were about 15 artists in attendance at the workshop to learn about the requirements of the grant. As far as she is aware, Valdez and Annotti, working with Mr. O’s Academy, were the only artists to apply from San Benito County.
“Mr. O was getting ready to open Mr. O’s Academy and I called and asked him if he would be interested,” Laine said. “I thought it could potentially be a good project for his place.”
Though they did not take band classes with the former teacher as students, Valdez said Mr. O has become a mentor.
“It’s great that he still has the ability and loves to mentor,” Valdez said. “He’s incredible.”
