co-written: Social agency through collaborative songwriting and performance

Co-written is a series of collaborative songwriting and performance workshops in New York led by artist and educator Chris Ignacio and local musicians for young people of color.

Throughout the workshops, participants write and perform original songs and collaborate with professional NY musicians to record those songs and elevate them to a professional level.

The aim is for the young songwriters to first realize their capacity as artists, then experience their words echoing out into a community, taking on different forms and meanings. The project challenges ideas of authorship and product in a hyper-consumerist market by asking: How does one own something? What are the defining lines between acknowledgment and exploitation? When is something finished?

Collaborators included: Mark Martin, Kayla Mullady, Rotem Sivan, Yuto Kanazawa, Jazmine Yvonne, and more.

Generous support provided by Queens Council on the Arts.