An Evening of Music by BAC Artist-in-Residence Michelle Zarco – In Partnership with Musicambia

An Evening of Music by Michelle Zarco
with BAC Artist-in-Residence Michelle Zarco
In partnership with Musicambia

Date & Time: Monday, October 5, 2026 7PM
FREE Community Program. Registration encouraged, walk-ins welcome until we reach capacity.

Join BAC Artist-in-Residence Michelle Zarco for an evening of music, in partnership with Musicambia.  

This concert will be the premiere of a new set of original music by flutist, singer and songwriter Michelle Zarco, written and arranged during her residency at Bethany Arts Community. The 50 minute program will be performed with a small chamber music ensemble, followed by a 15-20 minute Q&A with the artists. 

Michelle will be joined by a guest alumni from Musicambia for 2 to 3 songs of their own, arranged by Michelle.

A NOTE FROM MICHELLE
For most of my career, I’ve supported other people’s artistic work—as a teaching artist, session musician, songwriter, an artist manager for seven years, and now as a career and brand consultant. It always felt safest and easiest to stay on the sidelines of artistic work, channeling my own creativity through someone else, without the personal risk of being seen.

This is in part because choosing music as a career can be a double-edged sword. The pressure of making it your livelihood can sap the joy and nourishment it’s supposed to give you as an artist. Teaching songwriting workshops in prisons through Musicambia is what changed that for me. Watching students write and perform their own songs, often for the first time, and seeing deep wells of passion, creativity, courage and resilience, broke through the fog and pushed me to start cultivating and writing my own music again.

This concert is the result. These songs are personal and reflective, influenced by my favorite artists in R&B, soul, and world music, and arranged for a small chamber ensemble that reflects my classical training. It feels fitting that this residency and concert are a culmination of this shift in my artistic practice, presented in partnership with Musicambia, with one of their alumni joining me on stage.

ABOUT MUSICAMBIA
Musicambia (“music” + “change”) helps people in prison and jail write, play, and perform music, cultivating collaborative communities that benefit the health and well-being of everyone involved. Musicambia’s Flagship Program, which began at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in 2014, meets biweekly from September to June. Thirty incarcerated participants attend morning and afternoon classes for 4 hours, fostering teamwork, empathy, and a sense of responsibility to themselves as well as to their fellow students. Musicambia also has programs at Bedford Hills, Fishkill, and Eastern Correctional Facilities in New York, and in Kansas and California. Musicambia annually reaches 140 incarcerated participants, as well as audiences of over 200 incarcerated people for concerts. Previously, the organization worked in Indiana and South Carolina: all told, Musicambia has created programs in 12 different facilities. 

Musicambia’s Teaching Artists hold positions in the Attacca Quartet and Imani Winds, and have taught at Juilliard, Curtis, Princeton, and Peabody. They have won GRAMMY awards, and collaborated with Pulitzer- Prize winners and pop-stars like Prince. Their musical backgrounds span Western classical, jazz, hip-hop, and popular genres, as well as Indian classical ragas. 

Learn more about Musicambia here: https://www.musicambia.org/ 

ABOUT MICHELLE
Michelle is a classically trained flutist based in NYC, with a musical practice spanning classical, world, and pop idioms. She also sings, plays piano, and percussion. In 2024 she founded Orchestra Elena, whose debut performance at Brooklyn Bridge Park was broadcast live on WNYC. She teaches music and songwriting inside correctional facilities through Musicambia, and draws on seven years in classical artist management at Colbert Artists Management to advise musicians on branding and career strategy, most recently as the selected consulting artist for Chamber Music America’s Ensemble Forward grant. Born in the Philippines and raised in the U.S., she is currently training to become a healer through craniosacral therapy, energy work, and herbalism, and feels most grounded spending time outdoors in nature. She believes in the power of healing through creativity, self expression, and self empowerment, and hopes to help the people around her become healthier and more fully themselves.

This Community Program is a part of BAC’s Annual Fall Multidisciplinary Residency. As part of a residency at BAC, we ask each artist to build and facilitate a Community Program. Community Programs are a unique opportunity for both artists-in-residence and our local community to gather, engage, and be in conversation with one another through art. Community Programs are free engagements open to the public and/or in collaboration with a local community partners. 

Learn more about this year’s Fall Multidisciplinary Residency here!

BAC’s 2026 Fall Multidisciplinary Residency is made possible with support from New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor’s office and the New York State Legislature, Westchester County Board of Legislators, ArtsWestchester and Westchester County Government.