Brain Change is a social enterprise focused on critical education and community organizing. Operating at the diverse intersection of music, journalism, and adult education, Brain Change provides performing arts, writing, and training to disrupt systems, establish new norms, and vitalize social justice. A playful reclamation, Brain Change is named after the commonly misspelled name of its founder, Brian Chang.
Brian Chang has been involved with choral music as a singer, administrator, and conductor for over a decade. In 2015 he started writing for the Wholenote Magazine as its resident Choral Scene columnist; providing news and insight on choral music to a 30,000-print circulation. In 2016 he became a regular contributor with Ludwig Van Toronto, formerly Musical Toronto. Capable of writing blog-style quick reads, in-depth interviews, editorials, and features, Brian's work always seeks to illuminate the reader with new angles, authoritative voice, and a creative edge.
*Ludwig van Toronto is a member of the National Newsmedia Council
This report is organized mostly by chronology, exploring the links over time for the Environmental Bill of Rights, Legal-Aid funding, and dozens of dangerous landfill cases are just a few examples of the important work that CELA has done. Proper respect is given on my part for exceptional cases in CELA history. But there are equally important small cases, such as protecting a maple tree; fighting against unsafe radioactive materials storage at the University of Toronto; cultivating environmental law centres all across the country; and proffering the official CELA submissions which keep the government accountable, not to mention demonstrating the wherewithal to keep fighting these battles day in and out. This is a story of those battles and the ways CELA volunteers and staff have worked over forty years to implement a magnificent world of imagination which we continue to dream every day. …
A couple of blocks from the Distillery District in the downtown Toronto Port Lands, there is a series of buildings, over a hundred years old, that once made up the Dominion Wheel and Foundries...
No performing arts organizations can pretend they don’t exist in a specific time and place – responding to cultural and political moments of the right now, even when the music they perform comes from very different times...
These are challenging times to be a musician. Empathy and compassion is a crucial part of a pandemic response, but it is easily forgotten in the immediate dangers of trying to protect oneself from an unmasked person...