Hi, my name is Dr. Maggie Rizzi.

I am a philosopher, musician, educator, writer, and documentary film maker.

I am currently working on a documentary series about Ann Maguire and a Circle of Heroes, some of the greatest heroes that you have never heard of. But chances are you have been impacted by their work. It is an important American political success story waiting to be told.
I am honored and thrilled to be able to tell it, now particularly, when a new generation of activists needs a successful road map for the next wave of social justice movement.

The Personal Is Political

I grew up in New York City, a great place for me to live and learn. The bustle, the culture, the bigness and vibrancy of it all, was a preparation for any and everything. Whatever you want to do or explore, you can find it there. I had a family that could help me take advantage of that. It was a treat, the big museums, the libraries, the theatres, the parks, the food, everything.

I was quite young when I realized that my orientation was not the straight one of so many people around me. I was lucky enough to grow up and come out as a Lesbian during the early 1970’s when there were many stirrings of the post Stonewall LGBT rights movement, especially in Massachusetts where I chose to go to college. It was through this process that I met Ann Maguire, and learned about the Gay Academic Union, the Gay Community News, the gatherings at the Charles St. Meeting House, the Elaine Noble campaign, the Gay Way radio show, the bars where men and women gathered and could be themselves. I was younger than Ann and Elaine, and so many of the others whose stories I am now in the process of collecting, but I was old enough to participate in what they had started, and to watch as some of the early tide began to gain strength.

It was only when I saw this work reflected back to me by my British wife, whom I met in 1990, that I realized I had taken for granted the great social change I had witnessed at such close range. It was she who marveled at what had been accomplished and gave me that perspective of an outsider. I understood then that the story had to be told. It was all rather underground at the time it was happening, no major media outlets or journalists were watching, no academic historians. No one there to place these efforts in the context of history.

How some things become history and others don’t is a study in itself, rooted in who holds the power in a culture. Even now the stories of this remarkable and successful change work have not made it into the mainstream annals of history. Through this documentary, that is about to change. Everything in my training, interests, and experience has uniquely prepared me for this work.

Philosophy- ‘Annex Every Age Into Our Own’

As someone interested in the big questions from an early age, I chose to study philosophy as an adolescent and undergraduate. I wanted to know, ‘what is good?,’ truth? “beauty?’ ‘what do we do with the time we are given?’ During my 16th year I discovered Immanuel Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason,’ and found some of my favorite insights into those things. I delighted in every page. The book was my constant companion that year, and a few years later I earned a BA in Philosophy from Clark University and read many of history’s great thinkers. Even before I read Seneca’s prompt, quoted above, I believed it. And while there are many ways one can pursue these lifelong questions, for me, the transcendent universal language of music, and the connections we make through it, were always going to play a central role.

All that Jazz

My father taught me to play guitar when I was 8 years old, and I have been playing music ever since. When I was 20 a friend gave me a bass, a set of lessons, and her place in a band she was leaving. Thus began my life as a professional bass player.
My musical path has included a Masters from New England Conservatory, many bands and recordings, and continues, reinvigorated, as I live in a place where the vibrant music scene provides many opportunities for our band to perform.
While I love funk, rock, blues and show music, and play them a lot, I quickly realized that Jazz is the most fun for the player. Everyone takes turns in a supporting and a featured role. You never play a piece the same way twice, and even the bassist gets to solo. Unlike classical music, where everyone plays a set sheet while being led by one person at the front, in Jazz, all players are pretty much equal, and the music is an egalitarian conversation.
It was apparent immediately that there were not many women in the profession. Everyplace I played, there were comments on the novelty of a “girl bass player.” I often heard “you are good for a girl,” either explicitly or implied. I still do. As you can’t prove a negative, I will never know what opportunities my gender closed for me, and I never dwelled on that. But I never forgot it either.

Those That Do, Teach

Then, as I started to study Jazz, I learned from my teachers that older players taught younger players, and that this apprenticeship style of learning survived, even as the study of the music was adopted by formal universities. Inside and outside the walls of academia, this beautiful ancient tradition remains, hiding in plain sight. Studio teaching of bass and guitar was my entrée into the world of education, a world I have never left.

My teaching practice moved into high school when I was invited to teach a class in a school for challenged teenagers. They were challenging as well, but love, faith, and respect helped them blossom, and to music teaching I added photography, historical research, social history, and English.

Since I had a Bachelors in Philosophy and a Masters in Music, I decided to do my Doctorate in Education, honoring the other side of my working life. As a part of that journey I taught group instruments and Jazz history to university students, and mentored and supervised student teachers.

I have always wanted the greatest impact for good, and in that quest, I left the classroom for leadership, where I was able to work on the level of systems, and teach teachers, thereby reaching more students. My primary role as the Superintendent of Schools in the town of Stoughton is to get the teachers what they need: the resources, the training, the time and space to be their best.
As I look to move on from that aspect of the work I know that teaching is something I will never really leave entirely, there are so many forms it can take.

Telling the Untold Stories

Thanks to the amazing Lee Indrisano at Boston University I was able to do a non-traditional doctoral dissertation that was about the experiences of 16 women Jazz musicians and how they were able to succeed, told in their own voices. I recorded their interviews, and each of them was rich, engaging, and uniquely beautiful, full of insight and sharing. The relational experience of storytelling is as powerful now as it was thousands of years ago. My evolving relationship with documentary film making is an extension of this process to which I have long been drawn.
It was a natural move into video as a way to record some of my more innovative concert projects, including a unique presentation of a Gounod Mass, and a big band concert set in the context of Big Band history. I did videos for some of my musical friends, and then as an educational leader I began making videos about notable aspects of our work.

It’s Not a Movie, It’s a Movement………….Join the Journey

The documentary series and related feature screenplay I am working on now bring all of the aspects of my work and life together.

It can be easy to read about great people, prodigious achievements, famous moments in history and see the people in those stories as different from us. But are they really?

What I have learned from the Circle of Heroes is that greatness, among other things, is a choice. To write this invisible history and inspire a new generation is a choice I am making.

You can participate in this work.

I am currently engaged in fundraising and finding collaborators to get the doc series and the feature made and distributed to a mass audience.

If you think you can help in some way please contact me through the website.

You can become part of our community through email, Facebook and twitter.

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