Dear Friends,
This season we step forward into our second quarter-century. Our vision lives and breathes within every individual touched by ACG, and today I’d like to share a few of my own hopes as we forge our path onward.
We have learned that music is a deep and powerful connector. It flows like water into the spaces between us, creating reasons to come together, invitations to express our individuality, activities of identity uniting students and mentors and communities. At ACG we have begun to revolutionize music education in America. We have had a rare and special opportunity to add classical guitar to school curricula for tens of thousands of students. And this is significant because guitar draws new and different kids to the widely documented benefits of serious, school-based, fine arts engagement. Along this path we have discovered many new ways to focus our service for youth and adults in myriad circumstances.
At ACG we have begun to revolutionize music education in America.
Our work is just beginning. We have many miles to go in our effort to support rigorous credit-based guitar education across Texas, our nation, and beyond. But that’s not all. I believe we are in a unique position to begin studying and promoting new ways of community engagement through the arts.
Children hear a song completely differently if they are asked in advance to think of a story while they listen. Why is that? I would like to know, and I believe connected to the answer to that question is nothing less than a brighter future for the arts, and for our communities.
My focus this year, therefore, will be to advance the Austin Classical Guitar Endowment so that we may support research and development in education, in social service, in healthcare, and in performance now and for generations to come.
With deepest thanks,
