Teaching and music are one to BRIO winners

Penny Prince does not compartmentalize her careers as music teacher and as composer. When making a new piece, she collaborates with her own students.

Two such compositions, “Cuando” and “In the Name of All of Us,” helped the Riverdale resident earn a Bronx Recognizes Its Own Award (BRIO) from the Bronx Council on the Arts (BCA) earlier this year.

The pieces were part of a play performed at Lehman College, where she teaches, about bus boycotts during the civil rights movement in the 1950s.

Ms. Prince said she was able to write “Cuando” from the perspective of the Latino community by channeling the voices of her Lehman students.

She has also taught at P.S./M.S. 37 and Riverdale Country School among others.

The artist says she has made over 200 musicals during the course of her career, including works just for the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale and the Riverdale Temple.

“Riverdale has always been open to, if I have an idea or if I want to do a performance some place, they’ve always welcomed me,” said Ms. Prince. “Riverdale is supportive of people who have ideas and want to do something.”

Another Riverdale resident won a BRIO for composition this year. Tamara Cashour was recognized for a classical piece called “Queens Suite.” The work is about seven sources of personal inspiration, from Queen Latifah to the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Like her fellow winner, Ms. Cashour has years of experience in education, having taught in the Bronx and directed a musical at the nearby Luisa Pineiro Fuentes School of Science and Discovery (P.S. 307). (Both winners also declined to state their ages.)

“I remember in high school reading about the Bronx and about New York City and a couple of books that teachers had written about teaching in urban schools and thinking, I want to do that some day,” said Ms. Cashour. “I didn’t quite go that route directly, but I have done that kind of work along with my composition and would love to do more of it.”

Ms. Cashour is also an organist at the Presbyterian Church of New Rochelle and the rehearsal/performance pianist and assistant conductor with the Bronx Concert Singers at St. John’s Lutheran Church in the South Bronx.