About GME

Guy Mendilow Ensemble (GME) produces live, original multimedia performances and thoughtful residencies. Through riveting scores, narration blending memoir and poetry, and theatrical projections, GME explores real-world tales of choices people make in times of personal or societal change, especially unexpected grace in upheaval.

Production examples include:

The Forgotten Kingdom: Dreamlike theatrically projected sand animation, narration blending memoir and poetry, and a riveting musical score reframing Ottoman Jewish women’s song render an interwar letter from a mother to her daughter, in the form of a book of memory so that — years later, once grown — the daughter would remember how it felt to live in her parents’ vibrant, multiethnic Mediterranean world, before its unraveling.
Radio Play(s) Series: Like a stage-performed podcast, each episode unpacks a timely theme through a collection of stories. Co-directed with spoken word artist Regie Gibson, Radio Play(s) addresses mounting civic/racial tensions in the US.
Around the World in Song Series: Joyous, interactive episodes nurture children’s musicianship and multicultural inspiration. Perhaps above all, Around the World in Song gives young people the experience of being listened to by grownups. As pedagogically thoughtful as it is uplifting, Around the World in Song is built on principles of Dalcroze Education and Fred Rogers’ philosophy.

Led by composer/educator/facilitator Guy Mendilow, GME is a cutting-edge collaboration of international musicians, composers, visual artists, writers and theatrical designers from the Middle East, Europe, South and North America now living mainly in Boston, MA and New York, NY.

GME’s music layers intricate percussion, nuanced vocal harmonies, and pan-cultural influences over a Western classical foundation. GME’s scripts are inspired by the dreamlike qualities of Pablo Neruda and Michael Ondaatje, and by Dan Carlin’s vivid restoration of faded historical memory. Visually, evocative lighting and set pieces frame flowing sand narratives and locations. Theatrical editing and projection techniques enable the pre-recorded sand animations to follow live performance of script and score even when pacing varies as artists respond to each theatre’s audience.

Touring since 2004, GME is recipient of funding awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, The Boston Foundation and Western Arts Alliance for artistry, cultural preservation, and strengthening of communities through the arts. GME operates on the conviction that moving, multidisciplinary stories can be powerful agents for conversation: A coming together to listen to one another and share our stories in the service of exploring who we are and who we wish to be, building an understanding of how the other has come to believe what they believe and know what they know.

GME specializes in collaborative residencies and facilitating moving experiences for people to engage with each other’s stories in ways that are dignified and alive. GME’s interdisciplinary team combines excellence in crafting, directing and performing multidisciplinary productions with educational pedagogy and thoughtful gathering design. These projects are not about agreement. But they are about understanding, and being understood: What are the backstories leading you to be who you are, see what you see, know what you know?

Guiding Principles

This framework summarizes the means and aims in most of GME’s work

GME’s 4C’s: Craft, Connection, Curiosity, Choices

Through efficacy in Craft, we move people.
By moving people we inspire personal Connection with what previously seemed unrelated or irrelevant.
Connection drives Curiosity, opening opportunities for learning.
Curiosity, directed by deft facilitation, expands willingness to explore, listen generously, and develop understanding of experiences, relationships and perspectives different from one’s own.

Why This Matters
- Sustained, deepened inquiry strengthens awareness of often-tacit assumptions about how we relate to the world and to one another.
- It is more difficult to dismiss and dehumanize someone once we have heard their story, and have developed an understanding for their beliefs and viewpoints, even if we sharply disagree.
Over time, this increases informed agency in Choices we make.