Spotlight Non-profit: Pairing professional musicians to mentor low-income music students

LatinaLista — Austin, Texas is known as a music mecca. After all, it’s home to the SXSW Music Festival (South by Southwest), one of the most international gatherings of musical artists. With all that musical talent in one town, it makes sense that a program could be created to pair professional musicians with children who want to be musicians themselves, but whose families can’t afford to make those dreams a reality.

The program does exist and it’s called Anthropos Arts.

Anthropos Arts is a program that brings professional musicians who mentor students from low-income middle and high schools via free music lessons and music education programs.

The musicians mainly work with students who live in the East Austin community.

The program:

… provides students with an opportunity to see and hear local and touring musicians play through school-wide workshops.

… teaches and focuses on improvisation, jazz theory, and other areas rarely touched in public school music programs.

… encourages students to create, compose, and improvise.

… finds opportunities to combine subjects other than music (i.e. history, geography, math, science) into lessons and workshops.

As a way to showcase the young musical talent and acknowledge the mentorship from professional musicians, an annual end-of-the-year concert is held for family, friends and the general public.

The experience attained through the Anthropos Arts program is more than life-changing, and every year we see students open up, gain confidence, and grow.

Tax-deductible donations help with providing the music lessons and workshops to the students. Patrons and supporters can keep up with what’s happening with Anthropos students through the Facebook and Twitter pages.