ACG Education

The 24-25 school year is underway. ACG is investing a million dollars in our education services this year. As you’ll read in the report below, ACG Education enriches the lives of thousands of young people and families in communities near and far. If you are inspired by this work we hope you will consider making a gift as part of our Fall Fund Drive. Click here to donate.

2023-24 was filled with important organizational milestones, beautiful individual moments, and progress toward our strategic goal of scaling our services nationwide. We are excited to share many points of light in this report, but we’d like to begin with our why:

Music education in school does great things for students, it’s been proven in decades of studies, and new data we’ll share in this report will underline just how powerful it can be. 

Guitar is the world’s most popular instrument, and when programs are built with care and rigor, we can bring new and different students to these proven benefits on a massive scale. 

When we learned that enrollment in our partner programs in Austin ISD surpassed both orchestra and choir district-wide, we asked ourselves: ‘What if we could do this in every major metro area in the nation?’ 

After 22 years building the resources, training protocols, and real-world applications of guitar program building, we believe we have the unique skills and knowledge to make a major positive change in American music education, which in turn will have a large-scale impact on tens of thousands of young people in the coming years.

INVESTING IN PEOPLE

Music is our medium for connection, and it’s through connection that we make positive change. The key to it all is our people. Classes and concerts can be safe and inspiring places for growth and belonging if the people involved bring care and wisdom to their approach. 

Therefore, our most important and most significant investment has always been in the amazing and dedicated individuals who make up our team, and then radiate out our values through modeling and training.

In the past twelve months we’re ecstatic to have brought four very special people onto our team: Phil Swasey, Jordan Sanchez, Alex Lew, and Rey Rodriguez.

Phil Swasey joined us last summer as our Director of Curriculum and Partnerships. A thirteen-year veteran teacher, Phil now leads advancements in our technology and curriculum, especially GuitarCurriculum and our method books, and is laying the groundwork for scaling partnership. Jordan Sanchez joined us this summer as our Education Project Manager. With Five years of public school teaching experience, Jordan is already revolutionizing our approach to information management and customer service, adding critical components for responsible growth. Both graduates of ACG Education, Alex Lew and Rey Rodriguez have joined our Teaching Artist team working both with our community ensembles and individual lessons programming.

INVESTING IN GUITARCURRICULUM

Since 2008 GuitarCurriculum has been our primary engine at ACG Education. A first-of-its-kind classroom guitar teacher resource, GuitarCurriculum houses all of the music teachers actually use in the classroom, along with sequencing, audio and video resources, and a range of other support materials for teachers.

We are absolutely thrilled to announce the release of a brand new GuitarCurriculum website in September 2024. A result of 6-months of work and investment, and years of dreaming and development, the new website provides superior performance for teachers, and superior data and customer service support for ACG. 

NEW IMPACT DATA

In the past year we have been able to connect directly to an AISD student data reporting tool called eCST. eCST allows us to pull aggregate performance data about students in our programs across the district, and compare performance directly to non-guitarist peers matched by campus and demographic. This is a powerful new opportunity to view the impact of ACG education beyond the guitar classroom. Many studies of this nature are weakened because they compare students who self-select music instruction broadly with students who do not, allow a range of other socio-economic factors to come into play when comparing academic or behavioral performance. These problems are mitigated by these data, however, because of our ability with eCST to match students by campus and demographic, even when pulling information from many campuses. 

Our new website will also include our first-ever student portal, filled with materials produced to engage our students and support out-of-school practice. Spanish language support materials, including tutorial videos, will launch with student portal as well, and a new Spanish-language method book is currently in production.

INTERNATIONAL SERVICE

While most of our development work is focused in the United States, occasionally we bet on particularly promising leaders elsewhere who we know will amplify our resources. Such is the case with Ravindra Paudyal in Nepal and Bosco Segawa in Uganda. With our assistance, Ravindra has developed beautiful classes for kids in central Kathmandu, and Bosco is now adding guitar as a central component in the orphanages he runs in Uganda where they just received our shipment of thirty guitars. We Hope you enjoy these videos.

NATIONAL SERVICE

In July 2024 we trained over one hundred teachers in three summits in Austin, Columbia (South Carolina), and St. Louis. That’s the most in one summer since before COVID. Our team also traveled and spoke at state music education conferences in Texas, South Carolina, New York, and Kentucky, and conducted or assisted with major district events in Loudoun County (Virginia), Austin, Houston, Dallas, and Denton Texas. 

At every teacher summit our participants engage in three days of intense and joyful work improving their skills as educators and artists. As part of the training experience, they also make beautiful music together whether they’ve played guitar their whole lives, or are picking one up for the first time on day one of the summit! We do this because we’re all about making beautiful music with everyone, and we do this because frequently in public schools teachers must accommodate students at different skill levels in the same room at the same time. We hope you enjoy this beautiful performance of GuitarCurriculum repertoire from our South Carolina 2024 summit.

CENTRAL TEXAS SERVICE

With programs now in almost every Austin ISD school, and partners in San Marcos, Manor, Hutto, and San Antonio, this region is by far our largest service area. We are thrilled to report new middle school programs developing in both Hutto and San Marcos this year. With this many programs (60+) and national teacher turnover trends rising, we are extremely busy training and supporting all of the new teachers walking into guitar classes for the first time this fall. Their readiness translates directly into the quality of student experience with music, and we want to get it right.

For twenty-three years we have been investing in free individual lessons for students who would not otherwise be able to afford them. This is a transformative program, and many of the ‘full-circle’ stories we’ve shared over the years–students graduating and later returning as professionals to work with us–directly relate to this program. We increased our investment in free lessons from $50,000 to $80,000 from 2023 to 2024, grew the number of contract teaching artists from 13 to 16, and increased the number of students served from 52 to 77.

June 2024 saw our first ACG Summer Camp, a scholarship-assisted experience at our Rosette headquarters. This camp provided twenty students from across our community with a supportive and creative summer focused on music. Throughout the camp, students engaged in large and small ensemble work, collaborating daily to prepare a beautiful program of music to share with friends and family. Six exceptional artists joined the campers, offering performances, masterclasses, and interactive workshops, including sessions on composition and improvisation. For our staff, this camp was also an opportunity to develop a prototype for an affordable, engaging summer program that all Austin students can access, with plans to expand in future summers.

JUVENILE JUSTICE SERVICES

In addition to our juvenile justice programs serving youth in residential facilities in the Austin area and Dallas, we are pleased to announce a new program at Juvenile Justice Alternative Education Program (JJAEP) in the 2023/24 school year. Working in this secure day facility has given our director, Hector Aguilar, the opportunity to bring the joy and connection of music to students who are not incarcerated at a facility like Gardner Betts, but may be on a track toward increased disciplinary action. We are still operating thriving programs in Travis County’s Gardner Betts facility, Williamson County Juvenile Services, and Dallas County’s Henry Wade and Medlock facilities. We are especially pleased to welcome long-term colleague, Noe Garcia, to our contract teaching team, who is now directing our Dallas program.

After years of development, we are also pleased to announce the start of our Long-Term Engagement Project for students who have been released from juvenile detention. In 2023-24 ACG contract teacher Willem Flowers, has been seeing several students, carrying the critical connections music brought them while incarcerated into their life in the community. 

In Williamson County we were invited to present for the Mental Health in Schools conference. ACG Director of Education, Travis Marcum, presented at the conference, and led a student interview.

COMMUNITY

2024-25 is the 25th season for our Community Ensemble programs under the leadership of ACG Director of Community Education Tony Mariano! With the additional last year of the South Austin Guitar Ensemble, and this summer’s addition of a third youth ensemble, our total number of community ensembles has grown to 6, serving over seventy-five people on a weekly basis.

Perhaps most notable in 2023-24, the ACG Youth Orchestra celebrated its tenth anniversary with a tour in Spain in early June. You can see the amazing photos in a day-by-day travel blog here. You can also read a lovely reflection written by ACG intern Micaela Creo here.

TWO SPECIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Braille Learning

We received the most wonderful email from Kim, a student in the Netherlands who has been using our LetsPlayGuitar Braille lifelong learning resource to learn guitar. Kim wrote:

“Thank you so much for answering my mail request. But most of all, thanks for creating the LetsPlayGuitar course! It was such a joy to find a fully accessible course for the classical guitar.

“I have finished all 8 levels now, although I guess it will take me some time to play all pieces in the indicated tempo. I’ll keep working on that (probably the rest of my life…).

But while I am working on that, I would like very much to have access to additional music in braille. And if possible, in downloadable, BRF format.

“I am from The Netherlands, and braille material for the classical guitar is very limited here. So, I was very happy to find your course on the internet. I am completely blind. I played the audio parts of your course, via an Iphone with VoiceOver, and I read the 40 braille scores on a braille display.”

Kim went on to give us some excellent suggestions for how to make our resource even better. Thank you Kim.

Presence

In February 2024, after eight months of preparation, 65 student guitarists, the five professional singers of VAMP, bassoonist Kristin Wolf Jensen, and guitar soloist Dieter Hennings took the stage to perform the world premiere of one of our most ambitious projects ever: Presence.

Our 2023-24 season theme was Presence, inviting everyone in our community to reflect on the transformative power of bringing one’s whole self to each moment, be it solitary or with others. Artistic Director Joe Williams paired with Education Director Travis Marcum and worked alongside superstar composer and ACG Artist In Residence Reena Esmail to make an enthralling work developed in partnership with the community. Events such as this are sparks for inspired learning, they exceed expectations and stretch everyone involved to new heights, and the result is unforgettable. Enjoy.

LOOKING AHEAD: BEAUTY, KINDNESS & SPARK

As we shared at the beginning of this report, we believe we are poised for a new era of service at ACG Education. After twenty-three years of innovation and replication, with remarkable and lasting results on generations of students, we believe it’s time to scale our programs across Texas and the US at a new rate.

We’d like to close with the introduction of a new idea: spark. For a decade we have been referring to our change agents as beauty and kindness. Beauty is our organizing principle, it’s what gets us together for concerts, or causes us to work together in the classroom to refine our skills. At the same time, so much of the change we see in humans over time, and the success of our growing community, is a result of intentional kindness. You might think of beauty as the nucleus and kindness as the electron that, together, make up the atom that is ACG. 

To this powerful equation, we’d like to offer a new observation. In the fertile context of beauty and kindness, we have come to realize that sparks of inspiration – unexpected projects, stretch goals, moments of sublime beauty, or joyful collaboration – become catalysts for transformation. Presence, our bold 2024 project with Reena Esmail, is a perfect example of spark. 

This is a significant learning. It is significant because the better we understand how we successfully make positive change in the world, the better we will be able to scale and replicate our service elsewhere. GuitarCurriculum is our sequential method, the Five Elements are our guiding behaviors, and we now understand our change agents to be beauty, kindness, and spark.

THANK YOU

ACG Education services are only possible because of the generosity of people who share our belief in the power of music to positively transform lives. We would like to extend an extra special thanks to the following institutions and individuals for their significant financial support over the past year:

The Ben & Nancy Sander Family, Meadows Foundation, Augustine Foundation, Cain Foundation, Kaman Foundation, Tim & Karrie League, Webber Family Foundation, W.D. Kelley Foundation, Still Water Foundation, Rea Charitable Trust, Texas Commission on the Arts, Greg Wooldridge & Lynne Dobson, Lucy & Bill Farland, atsec information security, H-E-B, Kodosky Foundation, Bill & Lynne Cariker, Robert Rodriguez, Applied Materials Foundation, Ernest & Sarah Butler, Louis & Mary Kay Smith Family Foundation, Mary Raley, Seawell Elam Foundation, Texas Bar Foundation, Gail Vanderlee Strain, Jacqueline Rixen, Stacia & Walt DeBill, Louise Epstein & John Henry McDonald, Mercedes-Benz of Austin, Mockingbird Foundation, Warren Skaaren Charitable Trust, The D’Addario Foundation, 3M Foundation, Debra Lewis, Carson & Michele McKowen, Ameriprise Financial Community Relations, Arnold Foundation, Linda McDavitt, Megyn Busse, Sangeeta Kaur & Hai Nguyen, MFS Fund at the North Georgia Community Foundation, Rotary Club of Austin – University Area, Shanti Foundation for Intercultural Understanding, Tito’s Handmade Vodka, Zack & Whitney Zamora, Austin Junior Forum, Free Guitars For Kids – FG4K, Robert Reynolds & Kelly Raley, Lloyd & Ferrell Pond, Jim & Jennifer Judkins, Russ & Janey Trowbridge, Kelley Bowen, Sandra Bosley, CAPTRUST, Jewish Communal Fund, Jim & Marion Jirsa, Ruth J Rubio, Tom & Judy Taylor, and Anonymous Donors

We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. We are having our Fall fund drive here at ACG and it’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to share stories like this. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.

For this year’s Fall Fund Drive, we would like to take a moment to introduce you to some of the amazing individuals who are at the heart of ACG’s community programs. 

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be sharing a series of stories that spotlight our dedicated employees and community members, highlighting the transformative programs they lead and the incredible impact they have on our community.

Thank you for joining us in celebrating these extraordinary programs and the people who make them possible.

This week we had the opportunity to connect with Director Juvenile Justice Education, Hector Aguilar. 

Hector’s work is nothing short of inspiring; he brings the gift of music to young people in the juvenile justice system, offering them a path to earn academic credit, express themselves creatively, and build relationships with music and their peers.

Hector began his career as a music educator over a decade ago in Brownsville, Texas. While there, Hector held a private studio with a friend and regularly collaborated with a local arts non-profit, where he worked with groups from lower socio-economic backgrounds and witnessed how music could bring joy and confidence to students facing significant challenges. 

In 2021, Hector began his journey in Juvenile Justice Education with us at ACG.

“I knew it was the opportunity I’d been waiting for. And now, I have the honor of working with students who inspire me every day.

I’m inspired by the potential every student has, regardless of their circumstances. After working with students from challenging backgrounds in Brownsville, I saw firsthand how music can be a powerful tool for change. When I joined this program, I realized that this was my chance to make an even deeper impact. 

Every day, I am motivated by the resilience of these students and their ability to create something beautiful through music. It’s their growth, their breakthroughs, and their courage to keep going that keep me coming back.”

Two of the biggest challenges of working with students in the Juvenile Justice system is building trust with those who have experienced trauma and hardship and the unpredictable nature of this environment with students being moved or released. 

Trust in the classroom develops through patience, empathy, and consistency, over long periods of time; something Hector is very gifted at and fabricates into his classrooms beautifully. 

“I believe that every lesson, no matter how brief, can plant a seed for growth and change.

The most rewarding experiences often come in small moments that carry a deep impact. For example, I once had a student who was initially very closed off. After weeks of persistence, he played a melody beautifully and said that playing guitar made him feel free. That moment of connection and self-realization was incredibly powerful. It’s moments like these—where music provides a sense of liberation and confidence—that remind me why I do this work.”

We had the opportunity to interview Hector about a couple of experiences he’s had that illustrates the emotional impact his program has on students in these centers,

“There was a time when I worked with a student who began to withdraw from the group. Previously, this student had been active and seemed to genuinely enjoy participating. I tried to be patient and understanding, encouraging him to join in whenever he felt ready. This continued for a couple of weeks without much change.

It wasn’t until a writing exercise that I discovered the root of his behavior. He was grieving the loss of a friend who had been killed and was struggling with the fact that he couldn’t attend the funeral or do anything about it. In the next class, I approached him privately, letting him know that I was there for him and that he wasn’t alone.

After that conversation, I noticed a gradual shift. He slowly began to re-engage with the group, and by the end of the semester, he performed in the spring concert.

Reflecting on this experience, I believe that it wasn’t just learning guitar that helped change his behavior. More importantly, he began to feel like a valued member of the group, with a voice and a safe space to express himself through music.”

“Another time, I worked with a student who openly expressed that he didn’t care about anything related to school, including guitar. After about a week of working together, he walked into class one day and said, ‘Mr. A, I still don’t care about school, but I like your class, so thank you for coming.’ His words made me feel like I was connecting with him, and I thanked him for sharing his thoughts.

By the end of our first semester, other teachers noticed a significant change in his attitude toward schoolwork, commenting that guitar class seemed to have sparked a complete turnaround for him. It was truly rewarding to know I had the privilege to be a part of his journey.

When he was released, we reached out to his mom to explore ways to continue supporting him through long-term engagement. During that conversation, she expressed her deep gratitude to ACG, sharing that her son seemed like a different person and that she loved hearing him play guitar. I believe the breakthrough for this student came from experiencing the process and joy of making music.”

Music and arts education can be life-changing for young people in the juvenile justice system. It provides a safe space for them to express emotions they might not have the words for. It teaches discipline, perseverance, and the satisfaction of creating something meaningful. Music can help them see beyond their current situation and imagine a brighter future. It’s not just about learning the guitar, it’s about building confidence, self-worth, and hope.

We at ACG are so grateful for the support of community members like you, who make programs like these possible. Hector shares more about what your support could become in his Juvenile Justice program, 

“These students are full of potential, creativity, and resilience. They’ve faced incredible challenges, but they are not defined by their circumstances. With the right support and opportunities, they can achieve great things. It’s important to see them for who they are, young people with dreams, talents, and the capacity for growth and change.

With continued support, I see this program growing in ways that can make a profound difference in the lives of our students. One of my dreams is to grow a long-term engagement program which will provide consistent opportunities for these young people to connect with music and develop their skills over time. I also want to create a program where court-involved students can replace their community service hours by participating in our classes. This would not only fulfill their obligations but also give them something meaningful to work toward—something that can truly change the direction of their lives.

Beyond that, I envision deeper connections between our students and the broader community. Whether through performances, collaborations, or mentorships, I believe these young people have so much to offer and can benefit tremendously from positive interactions outside of their immediate environment. Thanks to the support of our community, this program continues to evolve and provide students with the tools they need to thrive long after they leave our classes.”

Support Hector’s Juvenile Justice program here.

At ACG we often think of special moments as gifts. This holiday season, we’d like to share some of these gifts with you in a series we’re calling Beautiful Gifts.

Learn more about how to support ACG and make a year-end gift here.

Just this week, we had the privilege of witnessing a heartwarming and transformative experience as ACG Teaching Artist, Brendon Grabowski and Director of Guitar at Travis High School, Susan Ronzac presented a gifted guitar to a talented young student at Travis named Tyrique. This guitar, generously provided to us by Hungry for Music, is a symbol of encouragement, inspiration, and a bright musical future for Tyrique. 

Tyrique’s private teacher, Brendon, shared his thoughts on Tyrique’s musical journey and the impact of this gift. 

“Tyrique is an extremely focused, inquisitive and hard working person who deserves a beautiful guitar that can match his high level of playing. It has been so much fun to watch Tyrique change as a player every single week as he practices diligently and works on all of the things we changed in his previous lesson. His care for music and the guitar are inspirational, and it is my honor to call him my student (and of course Susan’s!). Bravo to Tyrique and his bright musical future – I look forward to our continued growth over the years!” – Brendon Grabowski, ACG Teaching Artist

Moments like these can be life changing and leave a lasting impression. Susan shared what this moment was like in her classroom with Tyrique, 

“One of the best parts of this morning was how much his classmates supported and cheered for him. Every one of them was really happy for him and they thought he was the most deserving among them all. That instrument will be carried with him 24/7. The smile on his face will be there for weeks! Thank you all so much for this amazing gift, that couldn’t go to a more deserving student, and also for ACG’s unwavering support for both my program and of me. I have the teaching career I dreamed about in my youth because of that support. Being able to see the sheer joy and amazement on Tyrique’s face has filled my cup! Moments like this are why I do what I do!”  – Susan Ronzac, Director of Guitar at Travis HS

Director of Community Education, Tony Mariano, reflected on the profound impact a gifted instrument can have on a young person’s life. He shared, 

“When I think of the true effect a gifted instrument can have on a young person’s life, the word that immediately comes to mind is validation. A gift of a beautiful instrument tells a young artist, “you are doing the right thing, keep creating beautiful things, stay inspired, the community believes in you.” The emotions that are on full display when a young person opens the case for their new guitar for the first time and pulls out a spectacular new instrument are profound. Joy, pride, inspiration, encouragement – these are the feelings that power ACG. I am incredibly grateful for having the opportunity to be a part of these wonderful moments, and I am incredibly grateful for the community that steps up to make these gifts and these moments possible.” – Tony Mariano, Director of Community Education

Stories such as these exemplify the transformative power of music and the importance of community support. ACG is grateful to be a part of Tyrique’s journey and to contribute to the joy and inspiration that music brings. 

As we continue our Beautiful Gifts series, we look forward to sharing more heartwarming moments that showcase the positive impact of music in our community. 

Learn more about how to support ACG and make a year-end gift here.

Austin Classical Guitar Youth orchestra is celebrating its tenth year with a tour to Spain! We’re raising funds to make sure all the members can go, and to help make ACGYO the best it can be. If you’d like to make a gift, you can donate here.

What a wonderful journey we’ve had so far at ACG Youth Orchestra! We’ve commissioned and premiered new works, performed in Austin’s major venues, made beautiful recordings, toured across Texas and beyond, and collaborated with other students, professionals, and even stars like Clarice Assad, David Russell, and Pepe Romero!

This year, in addition to beautiful performances and the premiere of a major new work by celebrated composer Reena Esmail, ACGYO is going on tour in June to Spain. We’re raising funds so that every member can make the trip.

We welcome your support! You can donate here, or, if you would like to get involved as a sponsor or business partner, email [email protected] and we’ll talk!. Either way, we’ll make sure to invite you to special ACGYO performances this season, keep you informed on all things related to our trip to Spain, and send special thanks from our super-talented young members along the way.

ABOUT ACG: In addition to our amazing concerts and the opening of our new theater in Hyde Park, The Rosette, our Education division has had the incredibly rare opportunity to add an entirely new for-credit course subject to American public schools. What started in one school in 2001, has grown to every Austin ISD school, 45 schools districts in Texas, and 40 US states, including Texas’s first and only for-credit daily performing arts classes for incarcerated youth (now in five facilities), and the world’s first lifelong learning system in braille for blind and visually impaired learners. If you’d like to learn more about this cause, you might enjoy reading our most recent Education Report.

Thank you for helping us make the world a better place through music!

We dream of a world where music is here for everyone, connecting us, inspiring us, and bringing joy and meaning wherever it goes. We are having our Fall fund drive here at ACG and it’s because of our community and supporters that we are able to share stories like this. Click here to learn more about supporting ACG.

This week we had the pleasure of delving into the inspiring full circle journey of one of our teaching artists, Francisco De La Rosa. We got to explore the path that led him to become dedicated to sharing the beauty of classical guitar with others and we’re so grateful to be able to share his story with you. 

As a young child, Francisco was always drawn to guitars. He shares his early experiences with the instrument,

“When I was five years old I received my first guitar after I begged my parents to buy me a toy guitar from a street vendor at the border crossing of Juarez and El Paso, on our way back from visiting family in Mexico. By ten years old I had outgrown that guitar, and I received my first full size acoustic guitar as a birthday gift. I taught myself by ear until I was 15, at which point I received the privilege of learning Classical guitar at Akins High school in Austin.”

Francisco became involved with ACG as a student at Akins and began performing and volunteering at events in 2009! Upon graduating university at Texas State in 2021, he became a teaching artist in our programs. Francisco shares, 

“The amazing experiences I had as a guitar student at Akins is what inspired me to become a teacher myself. Dr. Travis Marcum and Jeremy Osborne had such a positive and inspiring influence on me, that I dreamt of doing the same for future generations of guitarists. Now, I teach at multiple schools. This year I am teaching private lessons at Crockett High school, Travis High school, and Covington Middle school. I also teach guitar ensembles at Bowie high school and occasionally at Gardner Betts and Williamson County Juvenile Justice centers. I am also the director of the ACG Community Ensemble guitar choir.”

We’re so grateful that the experiences in our programs could inspire students to come full circle and teach the programs they were once a part of. Francisco shares a little bit about some of these full circle moments for him,

“Last year, the ensemble I had been teaching at Bowie earned sweepstakes at the guitar concert and sight reading and seeing their response was so awesome. They were so ecstatic because they realized their hard work paid off! This experience was so cool as a former student and now teacher, because it reminded me how I felt at that age and how hard these students work. I feel at times as busy teachers, we may forget how meaningful and joyful these experiences are for them but it was so cool to see.”

Francisco is a wonderful educator and we are fortunate to have him on our team! During our conversation he dove into what he loved about teaching and somethings he’s looking forward to. He said,

“As a teacher, I most enjoy how happy students get when they learn a new piece of music. Occasionally, there are times in my lessons with students where I take a break from teaching classical and will teach them riffs from metal bands like Metallica or Black Sabbath. They get so excited to learn these songs, but even more excited when I show them how it connects to what they have learned in their classical training and how that can apply to rock and pop and hip hop and even writing their own music! 

I see myself continuing to inspire the community through music in the future. As a teaching artist with ACG, I’ve had the honor of doing this at so many schools and I’m grateful for the opportunity. A few goals I’ve set for this year are to take some of my groups to the Texas State University Classical Guitar ensemble festival hosted by Professor Cruz, directing the middle school region concert, and on a personal level I am hoping to return to doing what I love the most, which is performing. I am getting a rock group together in which I play guitar and sing, and I am also hoping to start up a classical guitar quartet for fun!” 

We’re so excited to see Francisco continue to thrive as a successful musician and educator. We could not be more grateful for his journey with ACG and all the opportunities we have to connect with such beautiful people such as him. 

We are so grateful to our community for supporting the programs that bring us these relationships and transformative experiences. Thank you for supporting the heart of our organization, ACG Education.

The 23-24 school year is underway. ACG is investing a million dollars in our education services this year. As you’ll read in the report below, ACG Education enriches the lives of thousands of young people and families in communities near and far. If you are inspired by this work we hope you will consider making a gift as part of our Fall Fund Drive. Click here to donate.

Dear Friends of ACG Education,

When ACG Education began in 2001, music offerings in most U.S. public schools were limited to choir, orchestra, and band. We believed guitar, the most popular instrument in the world, could make a huge, positive impact on American youth, if taught with careful attention to beauty, expressivity, individual identity, and technical development. Through a partnership with Austin ISD, we were given a rare opportunity to create an entirely new course area – classroom-based guitar – and develop an approach to teaching that engages and welcomes every student who participates. 

Twenty-two years and tens of thousands of students later, we are incredibly grateful for this opportunity to serve, and to all those who have made it possible. And we are excited for the path before us. 

In two decades we have built programs in every Austin ISD middle and high school. Last year, enrollment in guitar across AISD surpassed all other music classes besides band. The district’s latest Master Plan calls for a dedicated guitar room and guitar faculty member on every new campus going forward, beginning with this year’s new Marshall Middle School.

We believe now more than ever that high-quality guitar education can significantly and positively move the needle for youth development, and not just here in Austin. We have successfully scaled our guitar education systems and resources to support programs in 45 Texas school districts and 40 states, along with a growing list of international partners. We believe we hold the keys to a major shift in scholastic engagement across the nation. A major focus in our 2023 Strategic Plan is continued scaling and replicating of ACG Education services and methods, while maintaining special focus on the critical needs of our local community, including Title 1 Schools and the Juvenile Justice System.

We hope reading this 2022-23 Education Report brings you joy and makes you proud. We thank you for your support, and the support of friends like you, who believe in ACG and the power of music to do good in the world, and who make all of this service possible. 

The ACG Team

Juvenile Justice Services

Earlier this year Kim Andersen, a Counselor at Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center and one of our longest-serving partners, wrote a beautiful letter in support of ACG’s work at the facility. Here’s an excerpt:

I can’t say enough about how much the addition of music influences the lives of our incarcerated youth. Every student in Guitar starts up reluctant, afraid of failure, and afraid of trying. The ACG teachers coax them out of their protective shell, note by note, until they are performing in front of crowds. It’s an amazing sight to see their faces when they look up and take in the effect they’ve had on those in attendance.

You can read Kim’s complete letter online here.

This past school year was a monumental time for ACG’s Juvenile Justice Education programs. For the first time since we have been working with youth in detention centers, we were able to successfully advocate for a student to be granted leave to perform off-site at one of our public events. To be able to gain the trust of the student and the leaders of the facility to do something like this is only done through the faith and efforts of everyone involved. This was such a beautiful experience for everyone, but most of all for this young performer. After playing he stated, “It’s amazing! There are so many words to describe it. I can’t find any right now but it’s really changed my life. It does a lot for me. It helps me. It gives me peace. It gives me happiness. I love this art of playing the guitar. It’s really beautiful and I’m really thankful for you.” 

Under the leadership of Hector Aguilar, ACG Director of Juvenile Justice Services, our work in this arena has thrived in five Texas facilities: Gardner Betts and Phoenix House in Travis County, the Williamson County Juvenile Justice Center in Georgetown, and the Henry Wade and Medlock centers in Dallas County. The success of these programs, and our expanding reach, is made possible by the dedication of our amazing and talented teachers: Hector of course, as well as Gabriel Ibarra in Dallas, and Francisco de la Rosa – himself a graduate of ACG education – in Austin.

Students in all five facilities performed throughout the year, including final recitals in May, and were able to participate remotely in our spring Concert and Sight Reading Contest.

Below is a piece titled “Forever Lasting,” created by the students in Travis County’s Gardner Betts Facility. What started as a simple warm-up exercise transformed into a composed and improvised piece that showcases the artistic growth and creativity of these remarkable young musicians. 

Local Services

Last year we reported our big news that guitar had become the second highest enrolled music class of any kind in Austin ISD middle and high schools (behind band). This was a huge milestone for ACG, since our primary work since 2001 has been to build these programs from curriculum, to teacher training, to district-wide organization and standards.

In August 2023, AISD Director of Fine Arts, Philip Taylor, wrote: “This growth has garnered district wide attention, as guitar courses now play a large role in the new educational specifications and master plan for the school district. AISD passed a bond in November 2022 and, as we modernize or build new campuses, guitar classrooms will be added to (or enlarged) at each of the secondary campuses. Not only does this partnership expand interest in the arts, but it provides an affordable instrument option for students interested in becoming a musician, removing one of the many barriers that exist for students to participate in the arts.”

We are still seeing strong performance from our local programs in Manor and Hutto, and are looking forward to two new middle school programs being added in San Marcos ISD, which will strengthen the excellent programs there.

Read Phillip Taylor’s letter here.

Concert and Sight Reading

Since 2014, ACG has created and administered Austin ISD’s Concert and Sight Reading Contest. This is a critical part of our growing ecosystem, creating an opportunity for students, teachers, and administrators near and far to work toward common educational goals. On May 11 and 12 over 40 programs participated from Austin, Odessa, San Marcos, Dallas, Williamson County, and San Antonio. 

ACG has also been working with the communities of El Paso, Corpus Christie, Brownsville, and Houston to deliver similar events in those areas. For example, in April the Socorro ISD event (El Paso) attracted all Six SISD High schools and two Middle Schools for a total of 13 events. Each year we share best practices, deliver newly created sight-reading excerpts, and offer training.

GuitarCurriculum, Method Books, and Teacher Training

The primary engine driving ACG Education’s growing reach in Texas and across the US is the support, training, and resources we can offer to music teachers and their guitar programs. 

GuitarCurriculum, originally launched in 2008, is a vast and evolving web-based resource for classroom-based guitar teachers. The big news this summer is the publication of our first-ever printed Student and Teacher Method Books. The books compile selected materials and scores from the website to give teachers a clearly prescribed path to follow with their beginning classes. The books are already getting a tremendous response. Isaac Greene, professor at Bob Jones University called them “a resource without comparison,” and guitar education leader Matt Denman called them, “a great achievement for class guitar pedagogy.” 

We are especially pleased to announce the arrival of a new staff member, Phil Swasey, who will be taking both the curriculum and our partner relationships to the next level. Phil has had a marvelous 14-year career as a master middle school instructor, has been contracting with ACG for several years, and his arrival on the team is much-anticipated.

We produced two Teacher Summits this summer: Austin, July 13-15, and Columbia, South Carolina, July 28-29. With over 70 participants, the Summits were a wonderful chance to debut the new Method Books. Our session survey comments included: “That was some of the BEST professional development I’ve had in 13 years of teaching!” and, “I want to commend you all for a fantastic conference. The patience and understanding of the GC team was phenomenal. I am incredibly appreciative of your kindness and encouragement. This conference helped ease my anxiety as I approach the new school year, launching a beginning guitar program.”

Performance Engagement

Over the years we’ve learned that a broad baseline of high quality education, when combined with injections of inspiration from high-profile events or guest artist appearances, make for a powerful recipe for personal transformation. Students have frequently pointed to ‘that one time’ when a guest artist came to their classroom, connected with them, and set them on a path of deeper dedication.

Joseph Palmer is our Performance Engagement Artist, performing over 50 concerts a year in schools. Guests artists and staff members often visit schools in this capacity as well. Here’s a note we received from Lively Middle School’s Meredith McAlmon about the impact a visit by ACG’s Justice Phillips, himself an alum of Lively’s guitar program, had on her students:

“I want to thank you for providing another wonderful opportunity for my students. Justice Phillips came to talk to and play for my beginning guitar class, which is made up of 18 sixth graders. This is a high energy class that meets right after lunch, and it is often a challenge to engage them. The visit from Justice was a surprise and they were so excited when they came into the room to meet someone they have often heard me talk about. Justice spoke about his journey and accomplishments in music, which started at Fulmore (now Lively) Middle School when he was their age. He pointed out that we even met in the same room that we are still in, and they loved that! Justice talked a little, played, talked some more, showed a little bit of his clip from Nick Hurt’s movie – whose title is the song that he commissioned Justice to write – and did some improvising along the way. The students were fascinated by the composing process, which Justice talked about as well. We are currently working on El Chinati, so we had the students get their guitars and play some of their parts – which he then improvised over. It was such an exciting visit for them, and the next day we did some more improvising in class, which they loved! They really related to Justice as a former student of their school and to the fact that someone so young and energetic (like they are) has already accomplished so much. It helped them to see what they could do if they set their mind to it!”

Community Education

The Rosette, Austin Classical Guitar’s new concert and creative learning center in Hyde Park, has been a game changer for our Community Education initiatives. The number of offerings and the number of participants has more than doubled in our youth and adult ensembles, our classes, workshops, open mic opportunities, student spotlight concerts, and early childhood development classes. In all cases we seek to leverage the inspiring beauty of the Rosette, with our knowledge of teaching, and our unique brand of welcoming kindness, to offer diverse members of our community joyful and unforgettable experiences with music.

Community Co-creation

In recent years we have made a significant, organization-wide effort to integrate our artistic programming with our services in education. We arrange school visits for almost every guest artist, and students perform before or during every major ACG public presentation. We also are investing deeply in large-scale community-based creative projects where students and community members collaborate for months to co-create and perform major new works. 

This past season, 65 members of our community developed a piece called “The Elements,” written by our Artist in Residence, Marek Pasieczny, which was performed in February, 2023. In the upcoming 23-24 season, we are thrilled to welcome the Fulbright-winning and Grammy-nominated composer Reena Esmail as our Artist in Residence. Reena will collaborate with students from across our community in the creation and realization of an exciting new work, which will be premiered in February, 2024.

Of her experience performing “The Elements,” an eighth-grade student, Aryanna, wrote in a handwritten letter to her teacher: “I was so excited because I was going to be surrounded by people who are just as passionate about guitar as I am. Ever since we worked with ACG, I haven’t been able to get that out of my head. The members were so sweet, the music they play is so beautiful and majestic, the stage was huge, just everything about that experience was so wonderful. The moment I stepped foot on that stage I knew this is the life I want.”

Read Aryanna’s letter here.

Free Individual Lessons

Recognizing that not all students in our community have the same access to private individual instruction, ACG has worked to provide high-level, weekly instruction for students across our district who show dedication to improving their skills, and who are nominated by their classroom instructors for this scholarship program. Started in 2001, our Free individual lessons programs is focused primarily in Title 1 Schools, and has grown to employ seven instructors with advanced music degrees, and serve about fifty students.

Our Free Individual Lessons program is a deep investment in the individuals served, with weekly instruction and an ecosystem of support that includes ensemble participation, performance opportunities, free instruments, and professional development including college and financial aid application support.

The results of this program have been remarkable. Dozens of students have won hundreds of thousands of dollars in college scholarships over the years. Six former ACG students, posit-college, joined the ACG team as staff members of instructors. Five graduates are now themselves full-time teachers in AISD. 

This year we’re especially proud of 2023 graduate Juanito Rodriguez who won scholarships to attend several universities in the spring and will be starting as a Music major at the Butler School of Music at UT Austin this fall.

Spotlight: Spy Kids

A particularly exciting example of community co-creation, is our Spy Kids project in collaboration with famed film director Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez has generously donated his Spy Kids movie music for us to use in our teaching curriculum. He also offered to make a music video of students playing it. ACG contract composer, Matthew Lyons, prepared the arrangement with Rodriguez and Rick del Castillo. Eighteen students learned the piece in the spring, and Rodriguez filmed them performing it at The Long Center in June. The video is due out soon, and the teaching score is already available online at GuitarCurriculum.

The Future

We have big plans to deepen and expand our education services. As we wrote at the beginning of this report, we believe we are holding the keys to a major transformation in scholastic engagement in America. In the coming years we plan to launch and name the Austin Classical Guitar Education Institute with several endowed positions in order to support and sustain the work we have started in the past twenty-two years. If you would like help us launch this institute, or if you have any questions about this report, please do not hesitate to reach out to Executive Director, Matthew Hinsley.

Thank You

ACG Education services are only possible because of the generosity of the many people who share our belief in the power of music to positively transform lives. We would like to extend an extra special thanks to the following institutions and individuals for their major financial support over the past year:

The Augustine Foundation, The Kaman Foundation, Karrie & Tim League, the Cain Foundation, the Webber Family Foundation, the Rea Charitable Trust, The Ben & Nancy Sander Family, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Shield-Ayres Foundation, the Still Water Foundation, Greg Wooldridge & Lynne Dobson, Bill & Lynne Cariker, Mary Raley, the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Long Foundation, atsec information security, Jeff & Gail Kodosky, Reverb Gives/Reverb.com, Carson & Michele McKowen, Judith Stich & the MFS Fund at the North Georgia Community Foundation, H-E-B, the Kodosky Foundation, Debra Lewis, Jacqueline Rixen, the Burdine Johnson Foundation, the Texas Bar Foundation, Lucy & Bill Farland, Sarah & Ernest Butler, the Texas Women for the Arts, Rick & Valeri Reeder, Mercedes-Benz of Austin, Mike Chesser, the Warren Skaaren Charitable Trust, Megyn Busse, Zack & Whitney Zamora, Greg & Cindy Abell, Martha P. Rochelle, Ameriprise Financial Community Relations, the University Area Rotary Club, Edwina Carrington, Patrice Arnold, Rich & Caryn Puccio, IBC Bank Austin, Stacia & Walt DeBill, the Shanti Foundation for Intercultural Understanding, the Mockingbird Foundation, the Arnold Foundation in honor of Lazan Pargaman, and Anonymous Donors.

At ACG, we believe in the transformative power of music. We have witnessed firsthand how music can transcend boundaries, touch hearts, and make a positive impact in people’s lives. Over the past decade, we have been privileged to create and sustain Texas’ first and only daily, for-credit performing arts course for young people incarcerated in the Juvenile Justice system. Learn more about ACG Education and our Juvenile Justice programs here. 

Here is a beautiful reflection by AISD Counselor at Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center, Kim Andersen. 

“My name is Kim Andersen and I have been working at the Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center in Austin, Texas since 2007. Gardner Betts is a juvenile detention center. The kids live here, incarcerated, and the seeds of a successful future are planted. I was a teacher at Gardner Betts for several years and currently serve as the school counselor. I feel I know our students well after all this time. These young men and women, aged 13-17, come to us via the Travis County Juvenile Courts, adjudicated by judges, for a therapeutic length of stay that varies from about 6 months to a year, with an average residence of 9 months.

Motivating them has always been our biggest challenge. I’ve never spoken to a student who didn’t want to have a bright future. But all too often they have failed so many times that their confidence is shot and they simply don’t believe they have the right to be successful. Our teachers meet them where they are, typically on an elementary grade level even though they’re technically in middle or high school grades, and challenge them to try. Trying involves failure, and that triggers their well–honed coping mechanisms to avoid embarrassment or shame; sometimes they lash out violently. It’s a daily struggle to be honest. But the teachers, guards, and mental health counselors persevere, because these are young humans who are capable of far more than they realize when they come to us.

Out teachers have worked alongside the teacher-musicians from Austin Classical Guitar since the beginning of my tenure. Over the years, our collaboration with Austin Classical Guitar has grown from a few times a week in the evenings to a regular class, within the school day, where students earn Fine Arts credits towards a diploma. I can’t say enough about how much the addition of music influences the lives of our incarcerated youth. Every student in Guitar starts out reluctant, afraid of failure, and afraid of trying. The ACG teachers coax them out of their protective shell, note by note, until they’re performing in front of crowds. It’s an amazing sight to see their faces when they look up and take in the effect they’ve had on those in attendance. Many of them choose to continue their guitar studies after they leave Gardner Betts, and ACG makes sure whatever school they’re enrolling in next is prepared to receive them with open arms, often providing an instrument to our resident students as their discharge from the facility. They’re hooked on music! And they’ve accomplished something they didn’t imagine they could.

It’s very hard for our young people to engage in the kind of practice and repetition necessary for incremental growth in reading, writing, and mathematics. At our best, we raise their grade levels by 1⁄2, 1, 1 1⁄2, or in rare cases 2 grade levels in the time they’re with us. It’s a tremendous source of pride to us, make no mistake, but the reality is that they come in with a 4th grade reading level and leave us reading on a 6th grade reading level, as they head back to their high school. More challenges await them. But music seems to have something very different for them. Going from almost complete ignorance of reading or playing music to confidently playing a composed classical guitar piece in front of an audience in just one semester is priceless for their sense of self–worth. The correlation between their engagement in their traditional classes of math, science, etc and their confidence level rising in their Guitar class is profound. Hope and Determination are wonderfully contagious!

I can think of no better way to invest in a creative Texas than by ensuring the wayward youth of our fine state continue to be provided with this musical opportunity from Austin Classical Guitar, and to expand the access to as many young people as possible. Please consider them strongly as a recipient of your grant funding, the money invested will come back to Texas many times over in the form of confident, competent, educated, and artistic citizens as these young student–musicians re–enter society with their newly acquired talents.” – Kim Andersen, Austin ISD School Counselor, Gardner Betts Juvenile Justice Center

Listen to a piece composed and performed by the students of Gardner Betts here.

Reflections such as these inspire us to keep evolving, fostering connections, and continue healing together. We are so grateful to have the chance to do this work and would not be able to create these opportunities without the support of our community. Learn more about how to support our Juvenile Justice programs here.