Dear Friends,
2026 marks the 25th Anniversary of ACG Education and I couldn’t be more proud.
Thanks to your support and the tireless dedication of Travis Marcum and our education team we have built something transformative that has positively impacted the lives of over one hundred thousand young people across thirty US States and over a dozen countries while helping build the careers of hundreds of music educators and focusing millions of dollars on high-need areas.
For this report I’ve made a list of twenty-five of the things of which I’m most proud, with status updates along the way. I’m profoundly grateful for the opportunities we have had to help so many young people in the world with music, while laying the groundwork for far greater service in the future.
Looking over the list I’m particularly struck by how many interlocking layers of connection our team has strategically built around each student. You will see systems to support teachers, systems that level the playing field for individual students, systems for social interaction, systems for rigorous evaluation, regular performance opportunities, chances to compose and premiere new music, opportunities to interact with world-class artists, multi-generational engagements, and significant efforts to provide access to these things where it wouldn’t otherwise exist.
In building what we like to call a pro-social ecosystem through music for our students, our research-informed intentions extend beyond teaching kids to play guitar. Our higher aim is to use the welcoming and expressive medium of guitar to create sustained safe and inspiring spaces to help foster healthy youth development.
Thank you,
Matt Hinsley, Executive Director
1) One of Austin’s Largest Music Programs
Four years ago our partner guitar programs, collectively, became the second highest enrolled music class of any kind across all Austin ISD middle and high schools – second only to band. This means the little guitar class we started in 2001 has grown to become one of the four major legs of the table of performing arts engagement for our community alongside choir, orchestra, and band.
2) Programs Across America
We now have partner teachers who have trained with us and use our curriculum materials in over thirty US states.
3) Teacher Training
We hosted our first Teacher Training Summit in 2009 and have since hosted trainings in many locations, and welcomed trainees from across the world. Our whole team collaborates on these events, but special appreciation goes to Jordan Sanchez, our Director of Projects, who makes everything happen.
New This Year: In 2025-26 we welcomed over 100 teachers for our major summits in New York and Austin and provided In depth onsite consulting for Cleveland Classical Guitar, Virtual training for Loudoun County, Virginia, Professional Development for Hutto and Austin ISD, virtual clinics in partnership with Teaching Guitar Workshops in four locations, and professional presentations at Washington DC Music Educators Conference, and Texas Music Educators Association.
4) New York
Thanks to the invitation and partnership of Internal Creations and Jahzeel Montes, with the support of the Pinkerton Foundation, the ACG Education Department had the privilege of hosting the first-ever New York City Teacher Summit at Carnegie Hall – a summit filled with new faces, practical hands-on training with GuitarCurriculum, and the world premiere of a brand-new piece written by Besa Carney, a former AISD guitar student and current composition major at the University of Texas.
Longtime teacher and performer in the New Jersey area, Steve Sabet, shared these beautiful words following the NYC Summit:
Dear Austin Classical Guitar Staff,
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, for the wonderful professional guitar workshop you all conducted, designed, and implemented. I really enjoyed the thoughtful sequence of the sessions, the curriculum itself, and the passion conveyed in your work. I can tell there’s a real sense of peace and love in the work you all do, and I’m happy to have learned from it. I loved meeting so many like-minded professionals and colleagues and learning from their own practice.
Additionally, I appreciated the Spirit Economy presentation because I needed to be reminded of the profound purpose our work serves. Thank you, Matt—beautifully done. I could go on about the importance of the training, but I simply wanted to share my gratitude.
One thing I love about being a public school music teacher is that there’s a beginning and an end. Each year is unique, and I reflect on what I did well and what I can improve for the next year. The NYC Summit gave me a lot of material and support that I can draw from to make my upcoming school year a great success. Thank you again. I’ll be in touch throughout the year and hope to meet you all again.
Sincerely,
Steve Sabet
Performed by participants of the 2026 New York City GuitarCurriculum Teacher Summit, please enjoy the world premiere of Blossom composed by Besa Carney and arranged by Travis Marcum.
5) GuitarCurriculum.com
Early on we learned two things: 1) lots of young people in schools wanted to play guitar and 2) America didn’t have a good system for teaching them in groups. So we spent five years making one and launched it in 2008 at GuitarCurriclum.com. Led by our Director of Curriculum and Partnerships, Phil Swasey, amazing things are happening with our most important resource.
New This Year: We developed and released our first Flamenco selections and tutorials in collaboration with global flamenco sensation Grisha! We released 7 new pieces – with student portal support materials – in Levels 5-8. We doubled the number of unique classroom code visits to our student portal (which was introduced last year). We worked with young artists to create video content aimed at students in both English and Spanish – thank you to The Baker 4 and to Krystal. And we launched a new feature allowing higher education students to have campus-wide access to our systems.
6) Method Books
We introduced our first printed method books two years ago and what an enormous difference they’ve made in classrooms near and far. These beautiful volumes give teachers clarity on sequence and provide extensive video support for students through QR codes linked to each piece. Special thanks to Phil Swasey who leads our Method Book generation.
New This Year: Method books sales rose by over 600% in 2025-26 over the previous year! We published our first Sight Reading volumes for statewide Concert & Sight Reading Contests which not only streamlined the process immensely, but also will now serve as practice volumes in advance of next year’s contest. We released all the new material we’d developed for the Level 5-8 method book on our website.
7) Concert & Sight Reading
Established music programs like choir, orchestra, and band have standard assessments including auditioned region ensembles, All State, and Concert & Sight Reading, all designed to set and maintain teaching standards. Because guitar is a new course subject, we have had to build these important elements for our district and across the state. We created and administered Austin ISD’s first Concert and Sight Reading in 2014.
New This Year: We hosted 2 Concert & Sight-reading events this year, Denton, Texas and Austin, Texas. The Denton event grew significantly this year and Austin welcomed 40 individual ensembles to perform at the contest. This included a first-time participant group from Bastrop Texas. Additionally, we supported 4 Concert & Sight-reading events in Houston, El Paso, Brownsville, and Edinburg. Over 1,000 students participated in total and a record number of sweepstakes was reached.
“I just wanted to reach out to personally thank you for bringing Concert and Right Reading to DFW. I first found out about the event maybe 4 or 5 years ago and used to daydream about my program eventually getting to go to it (I used some of the recordings as inspiration as I was digging into guitar ensemble music). Words can’t express how cool it was to finally do it yesterday. Thank you for making guitar such a powerful force in Texas.” – Marcus Kester, Music Educator, IL Texas
8) Free Lessons and Guitars
Since 2001 ACG has invested over $1 million to provide free individual lessons, guitars, and ensemble experiences for deserving students in our programs who have distinguished themselves through their efforts and dedication. These services are focused on Title 1 School students and Juvenile Justice Centers. Some of our most remarkable stories of individual transformation and success result from this extraordinary program and our teaching artists who make it possible. Huge thanks to Tony Mariano, our Director of Community Education, for leading this large initiative.
New This Year: The 2025-26 school year brought nine ACG Teaching Artists into twelve schools each week across Austin and Central Texas, providing classroom support and working one-on-one with more than fifty students. The results of these programs, and the impact they have on students are clear. We see the impact at places like Garcia Young Men’s Leadership Academy where Teaching Artist Alex Lew taught solo lessons and small groups. Their spring concert was truly beautiful. Students and families packed into a chaotic cafeteria filled with noise and distractions, yet when Alex and Lauren stood on stage together, and the ensemble played their first note, the room went silent, and all you could hear was their expressive beauty. A truly artistic moment, created by the amazing students from that program, fostered by their wonderful director Lauren and inspired by the artist and performer Alex.
Student Spotlight: When Adrianna Lopez, a student of ACG Teaching Artist Gema Ornelas, speaks about her experiences learning the guitar in high school, she speaks about how music gave her a purpose. It was a path that provided an opportunity, an opportunity that, if she put work into, could lead her to special places. She felt the incredibly good feeling of working hard at something, getting better, and feeling accomplished, and good about herself. Adrianna graduated from Travis Early College High School this spring and is planning on attending the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, where she is going to study music education. That same passion and fulfillment she felt learning to play the guitar is now something she can pass on to the next generation of young artists.
9) Javier Niño Scholarship
We established the Javier Niño Scholarship in memory of a wonderful student who inspired us during his short lifetime through his kindness and dedication. Each year 1-2 recipients of this scholarship received free lessons, a concert quality instrument, and many opportunities to perform.
New This Year: When Joshua Garcia – a 2025-26 Javier Niño Scholarship winner, and student of ACG’s Rey Rodriguez – talks about the guitar and music, he shares a story about his late father. His father was a musician, a really good one, and when he passed when Joshua was in Middle School, the guitar became a place that made him feel connected to his father. It brought about this special feeling in him, a feeling of joy and comfort. And every time Joshua speaks about making music, he talks about finding ways of sharing that same feeling with others. This thing that made him feel comfort and joy is something he shares with the people around him. Joshua graduated this Spring from Crockett High School and was admitted to the University of Texas at San Antonio to study guitar performance.
10) Paying Music Teachers
The conventional wisdom is that it is hard to make a living as an artist. This is why we’re incredibly proud to have paid nearly $10 million directly to music education professionals in the life of ACG Education, and helped build countless careers through the creation of new, school-based music programs near and far.
A Teaching Artist is someone who uses their art, along with their love and expertise, to engage with young people they serve. They bring their passion into the classroom, creating experiences that allow students to actively participate in their learning. The students working with these incredible professional artists are not just receiving information; they are experiencing the art alongside them. And we are able to provide these services at no cost to the students or schools.
Meet one of our Teaching Artists in this video! Rey Rodriguez is not only a brilliant teacher who works with individuals, community ensembles, and leads our special community project at Turner Roberts Community Center in partnership with Equidad Austin, he is also an ACG alumnus himself!
11) Full Circle Graduates
One of our greatest joys has been to welcome many graduates, like Rey Rodriguez, onto our team as professionals at ACG. Here are just a few of our remarkable full circle stories to enjoy: Javier Saucedo, Matthew Lyons and Besa Carney, Rey Rodriguez and Francisco de la Rosa, Justice Phillips, Susana Diaz-Lopez.
12) First-Ever Juvenile Justice Services
We are grateful to have been able to establish Texas’ first and only daily for-credit performing arts course for incarcerated youth in 2012. Here is a PBS NewsHour story made about the groundbreaking program in 2015.
13) Juvenile Justice Services Passes 3,500 Hours
Our Juvenile Justice Program now serves young people in six Texas facilities as well as youth in the community through referral partnerships with courts and probation departments. Read more in this reflection from our program director, Hector Aguilar, who leads this powerful initiative with heart and deep dedication every day.
New This Year: We served more than 100 students across Central and North Texas through juvenile justice and court-connected music education programs. We expanded Dallas County programming to three active sites with the addition of Youth Village. We placed more than a dozen guitars directly into students’ hands, enabling continued music-making beyond the classroom. The Vita Ensemble (Continuing Engagement Program) in Austin, provides former court-involved youth with ongoing instruction, mentorship, and public performance opportunities. We celebrated the first successful completion of the Transformative Youth Justice Program (TYJP) partnership, with the student continuing into the Vita Ensemble after program completion. Vita Ensemble members represented ACG at the Texas Network of Youth Services (TNOYS) Conference, sharing their stories and performing for youth advocates and professionals from across Texas. We successfully advocated for the Gardner Betts guitar course to regain its for-credit status after significant program changes, ensuring students could continue earning fine arts credit through participation. All six performing ensembles across Central and North Texas earned Division I (Superior) ratings at the North Texas Concert & Sight Reading Contest. A student-created musical idea grew into the original composition In Calmness I Found You, which was later incorporated into the ACG Teaching Summit as a model for collaborative composition.
14) Community Centered Art Making
Guitar education becomes life-changing and inspirational when students have an opportunity to share their music with others, shine as creative individuals, and participate in meaningful collaborations. As an organization we put tremendous effort into connecting our students with opportunities to perform, compose, and interact with world-famous touring artists. Recent projects that epitomize these efforts include work with Clarice Assad, Marek Pasieczny, Reena Esmail, and Pepe Romero. Joe Williams, our Artistic Director, leads our Community Centered Art Making initiatives with his characteristic blend of insight, openness, and excellence.
New This Year: Our 2025-26 Artist in Residence, Grisha, worked all season with members of our student community while also composing exciting new flamenco units for our curriculum. Community Centered Art Making was at the heart of our youth orchestra tour in March to Dallas and Oklahoma City as well as several new commissions. Our guest artists frequently work with students in various capacities, and a particularly shining example was Gaëlle Solal’s visit in March. Enjoy!
15) Community Education
Our Community Education Division, led by Tony Mariano, now includes seven youth and adult community ensembles, a special youth initiative in its third year at Turner Roberts Community Center in partnership with Equidad Austin, and a summer camp.
New This Year: Our ACG Youth Camerata joined professional artists and ACG staff for SPARK, a concert celebrating the work and impact of ACG’s Director of Education Travis Marcum, who for over two decades has dedicated himself to engaging young people in meaningful music making. Turner Roberts in its 3rd year, serving fifteen students at Turner Roberts Community Center each week. We completed our first year of the ACG Youth Prelude, an all elementary ensemble to bring our music making together with younger and younger students. ACG Youth Orchestra opened for Grisha at Troublemaker Studio to kick off the 2025-26 season, and also toured North Texas and Oklahoma City. Over 20 students attended our 3rd annual Youth Summer Camp at the Baker Center.
Youth Orchestra Spotlight Videos
Navajo Vocable # 9 by Connor Chee, arranged by Joe Williams
16) Let’s Play Guitar: Braille Lifelong Learning Resource
We began work at Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired in 2010 and quickly were asked to adapt music from GuitarCurriculum.com to Braille so that students could develop literacy skills. Several years later we realized that the world lacked a lifelong learning pathway for Braille readers. This led us to create LetsPlayGuitar.org, a free resource that has been used internationally. Guitar classes continue at TSBVI, sixteen years after they first began. Here is an inspiring early video about the program. Enjoy!
17) Nepal
Nepal was our first ACG-supported international program. It began in an orphanage in 2017 and has since expanded to serve students in the community in Kathmandu. We receive frequent video updates from our partner teacher, Ravindra Paudyal, and it is incredible to see the students progressing. This video, made in front of a temple near their school, remains one of my favorites.
18) Uganda
Our second ACG-supported international program is the M-LISADA orphanage system in Uganda. This extraordinary program serves over 300 young people, and uses music and dance as the organizing principle for their community. We supplied seventy guitars for their program, as well as teacher training, and now most students in the facility have regular guitar class. Here is a surprise video I received at Christmas time this past year displaying not only guitar playing, but beautiful singing as well.
19) St. Louis
In twenty-five years we’ve had several very special relationships develop with communities outside of Texas. Earlier in this report we shared news of our first teacher training in New York City. Perhaps several years from now we’ll look back and add New York to this list, among other growing relationships.
One place stands out, however, as a place we visited more than any other, where we made deep friendships, and helped build many lasting programs. That place is St. Louis, Missouri, and our nearly ten years of deep collaboration were possible thanks to a partnership with sister nonprofit organization St. Louis Classical Guitar Society.
This thirty-minute PBS documentary covers several aspects of ACG services, and includes footage and reporting from a memorable trip to see our partners in St. Louis. Enjoy!
20) Performance Engagement
In 1998 we began a Performance Engagement series designed to remove barriers to great classical guitar performance. In the next sixteen years we produced over three hundred free performances all around Austin. Then, in 2014, we partnered with Joseph Palmer, asking him to become our resident performance engagement artist, and we increased the rate of performances to about fifty per year and focused them primarily on our school programs.
Over five hundred performances later, Joseph has made an incalculable impact upon our student community. Many of our graduates point to moments of inspiration when Joseph performed for their class as catalytic change agents in their trajectory as young musicians. With a special focus on modeling and encouraging high school students to participate in solo UIL contests, Joseph’s direct influence has more than tripled guitar participation in UIL, most years making guitar the single most populated instrumental category in our region.
21) The Five Elements
The Five Elements is our engagement theory at the heart of everything we do in the classroom and beyond. What are they? I invite you to read Tony Mariano’s recently published article in Southwestern Musician (p. 26) on the subject.
Or, you can watch this video excerpt from a talk I gave this past spring when I gave a brief overview.
22) Impact Studies
In 2009 the UT School of Social Work conducted a social impact study on our programs under the direction of Dr. Calvin Streeter. The results were fascinating and led directly to the codification of our Five Elements theory several years later. Learn more here.
More recently, we’ve seen growing evidence that students in our guitar programs do better in school.
23) Education Endowment
At the end of this report I’ll share a bold vision for the future of ACG Education. Part of that vision includes the development of an endowment for ACG Education capable of supporting parts of our charitable and research mission so our work and experience can benefit many more people long into the future.
2025 began with a truly extraordinary gift from the Sander Family, establishing the Carol Jean Mosher Knupp Endowment Fund for Education. Held at the Austin Community Foundation, this fund will provide lasting, sustainable support for ACG’s mission of educational excellence.
In recognition of this remarkable generosity, our ACG Director of Education position—held by Dr. Travis Marcum since 2005—now carries the distinguished title Carol Jean Mosher Knupp Director of Education.
Carol Jean Mosher Knupp was the mother of Nancy Knupp Sander, and her love for music and education inspired this endowment.
“Mom was the music education director of our family, so it feels perfect that this gift in her honor will support the ACG Director of Education,” the Sander family shared. “Our hope is that this endowment will further the mission of Austin Classical Guitar and honor the ‘Essence’ of our mother.”
24) Long Partnerships
I’m in constant wonder at the many people who have believed in us over the years and made possible everything we are here at ACG. I think of our education partners like Austin ISD (25 years), St. Louis Classical Guitar (17 years), Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center (16 years), Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (16 years), and Cleveland Classical Guitar (15 years). I think of our incredible teaching partners like Ron Hare (19 years), Andrew Clark (18 years), Susan Rozanc (17 years) and Meredith McAlmon (16 years) and so many others. I think of our incredibly dedicated and generous supporters who believed in us even before we had much more than a dream like the MFS Foundation (25 years), The Webber Family Foundation (23 years), and many more dear friends who I’ll mention below.
In a recent interview I spoke about the power of these long relationships in a segment I call 1,000 Yesses. Enjoy!
25) Our Education Team
Our core Education Team is Travis Marcum (Director), Tony Mariano (Community Education), Hector Aguilar (Juvenile Justice Services), Phil Swasey (Curriculum & Partnerships), and Jordan Sanchez (Projects and Systems). To this list I’ll add Joe Williams, our Artistic Director who also conducts the Youth Orchestra and dreams up our large Community Centered Art projects.
What a team this is, representing a combined seventy+ years of collaboration with ACG. Each has mindblowing expertise fueled by big beautiful hearts that make everything we do not only possible, but thoughtful, caring, innovative, and elegant. These are the people behind the first 24 things on this list, powering the educational organization we’ve become after these first 25 years. Cheers!
The Future
Today I am thrilled to share with you our bold vision for ACG Education. We truly believe we are holding the keys to large-scale positive transformation of music education in America and beyond, and as the world grapples with changes in technology and complex social connections we think this work is more important than ever.
Thank You
Everything in this report was made possible by people who believe in the power of music to do good in the world, especially for children. We are grateful to the following institutions and individuals for their leadership support of ACG’s education programs during the 2025-26 school year:
Meadows Foundation, Still Water Foundation, Augustine Foundation, Karrie & Tim League, Lucy & Bill Farland, H-E-B Tournament of Champions Charitable Trust, National Endowment for the Arts, Webber Family Foundation, Greg Wooldridge & Lynne Dobson, Rea Charitable Trust, atsec information security, Cain Foundation, Jeff & Jenifer Westphal Foundation, Louise Epstein & John Henry McDonald, Jeff & Gail Kodosky, Long Foundation, Louis & Mary Kay Smith Family Foundation, William D Metz, Marc Winkelman, Lynne Boggs, Andrew Kennedy, Applied Materials Foundation, Arnold Foundation (in honor of Lazan Pargaman), James Bland, Linda McDavitt, Mary Raley, Sarah & Ernest Butler, Scott & Sabrina Ellis, Warren Skaaren Charitable Trust, Zack & Whitney Zamora, The Sander Family, Robert Rodriguez, Find Your Light, Michael & Alice Kuhn Foundation, GuitarCollection.com, Texas Commission on the Arts, David & Catherine Wildermuth, Kathleen Clark, Ameriprise Financial Community Relations, Bill Moyer, Joaquin Delgado, MFS Fund at the North Georgia Community Foundation, Shanti Foundation for Intercultural Understanding, St. David’s Foundation, University Area Rotary Club, CAPTRUST, 3M Foundation, Kisla Jimenez & Jonathan Williams, Paulina Pizarro & Eric Soenen