See Beautiful Grant Recipient: Atlanta Music Project

The feature below is brought to you by Atlanta Music Project, an organization that is in the running to receive a See Beautiful Grant. For more information about our giving initiatives, please click here.
 
To learn more about the featured organization, please visit their website here.​

In the fall of 2012, I met Vivian Carter and her three daughters in Perkerson Park. She was looking for an opportunity for her children to spend their after-school hours in a safe and enriching environment and immediately felt the Atlanta Music Project (AMP) offered exactly what she was searching for. I would like to share Alivia’s, the eldest daughter and 2020 graduate, experience with AMP.

Alivia joined AMP when she was 10 years old along with her two younger sisters. She was shy, had natural drive and discipline, and desired a constructive avenue to direct all that energy. Alivia had never played an instrument before, but she was immediately attracted to the sonorous resonance of the double bass. And with that, she started her journey as a music student.

AMP did not require Alivia, or any of its students, to audition or demonstrate any prior musical experience. AMP alleviates obstacles to access to high-quality after-school music education by providing everything necessary — transportation, instruments, teaching artists, lessons (group and private), and multiple opportunities to compete and perform — right in underserved communities, tuition-free. The one requirement for Alivia was to attend all the classes, which took place after school four days per week.

Founded in 2010, the Atlanta Music Project’s mission is to empower underserved youth to realize their possibilities through music. AMP believes that a young person who can perform proficiently on a musical instrument will have developed character traits that are associated with success: the ability to delay gratification, the confidence to execute under pressure, and an optimistic mindset to take on complex tasks and complete them by using a combination of strategy, curiosity, and creativity.

Although AMP is sometimes perceived as a music school, it is not in the business of developing the next virtuoso instrumentalist or chart-topping singer. AMP is in the business of teaching children the importance of the pursuit of excellence. Music is simply the vehicle used to teach this lesson, which our students then apply to their academics and their lives.

The outcomes we aim to see in our students include an increase in academic proficiency, test scores, confidence, and self-worth. The impact we aim to have on the communities we serve is to increase high-school graduation rates, grow the number of music education opportunities south of downtown Atlanta, and provide a safe space that our students can call home, right in their neighborhood.

Inherently, our society understands the value of music and arts education. Metropolitan Atlanta’s most sought-after public and private schools all have robust music and arts programs, a key indicator of the value of music education in the upbringing of a child. The 2012 study, “The Arts & At-Risk Youth”, by the National Endowment for the Arts found that at-risk youth who had access to intensive arts education were more likely to graduate high school and attend college than at-risk youth who didn’t have access to intensive arts education.

With that said, music education is expensive. For example, a family whose child takes private violin lessons and plays in one of the many youth orchestras in the wealthier parts of Atlanta (north of downtown) will easily pay $3,500 per year to cover the costs of music studies, including participation in one of the dozen of competitive youth orchestras and choirs. South of downtown, there are no competitive youth orchestras and choirs, and the arts education budgets in schools continue to face dramatic budget cuts, resulting in very few strong and stable music education programs.

According to the Brookings Institution Center of Urban & Metropolitan Policy (2016), “the poor in the Atlanta region tend to live in the southern parts of Atlanta and the close-in southern suburbs. The north side of the region has very low poverty rates and almost no areas of concentrated poverty.” They go on, “the City of Atlanta and the close-in southern suburbs are home to most of the working poor and moderate-income families of the Atlanta region.” It is these communities that AMP exclusively serves.

AMP is based in the AMP Center for Performance & Education in southwest Atlanta where the median household income is $28,333 (U.S. Census Bureau), barely over the poverty limit for a family of four. The community where AMP is based is home to Atlanta Public Schools Carver High School cluster, where all schools have a 100% free/reduced lunch rate. Resources and access are limited for students in our underserved communities, with more than 12% living two times below the poverty level and 5% three times below. The families AMP serves do not have $3,500 to spare for the same high-quality music education that the affluent families of Atlanta enjoy.

In Atlanta, the music education ecosystem is tied to socio-economics. As long as this is the case, competitive music education for hundreds of thousands of children is not, and will never be, a reality. The cost to the Atlanta community not engaging the untapped potential of its underserved children through music education - which has proven value - will never be recouped. It is a damaging oversight for the region.

AMP fills this void by providing intensive, tuition-free music education based right in underserved communities. Now in our 12th season, AMP is still the only organization providing such opportunities to underserved communities in southwest Atlanta and we have cultivated a reputation for offering some of the highest quality music education in the city and emerged as one of the leaders of youth development.

Annually AMP serves 300 K-12 students through beginner-level ensembles (After-School Orchestras, Preparatory Choirs), intermediate/advanced ensembles (Youth Orchestras & Choirs), private lessons (AMP Academy), and Summer Series, an annual summer festival and school. AMP classes are led by AMP’s faculty who are paid, local, professional degreed musicians and music educators. Students participate in AMP classes or concerts 1-5 days per week for two hours per day and collectively perform 50+ concerts annually throughout Metro Atlanta. Each ensemble performs both classical repertoire and music of the African Diaspora (Jazz, Spirituals, R&B, Caribbean, etc.), representing the community and youth being served. All AMP concerts are admission-free and open to the public.

Back to Alivia, she shares that “playing the double bass lets me feel a little bit more out of my skin and has given me confidence.” By spending at least eight hours a week at AMP (not including private practice), Alivia found a community where she could invest her energy in an enriching fashion and build a community of lifelong friends. Throughout her 8 years with AMP, Alivia performed alongside R&B singer Monica, Harlem string Quartet, in Mexico City under LA Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel, and participated in three Georgia All-State Orchestras (statewide ensembles of the most talented young musicians selected by audition), among many other impressive accomplishments and performances.

Alivia is going into her second year at Clayton State University, where she is majoring in Film and minoring in Music. She is also the first recipient of the AMP Endowed Scholarship; a partnership with CSU that provides financial assistance to any AMP alum who majors or minors in music at the university. AMP has graduated three senior classes and has achieved a 100% on-time graduation rate. Of the 17 graduates, 16 have continued their education at a college (one graduate joined the army), with 12 majoring or minoring in music.

Alivia exemplifies how musical proficiency has far-reaching benefits: “there have been times when I’ve resolved a problem — at school or in life — and thought to myself, if I didn’t know music, I would never have figured this out.” Alivia’s story is why the Atlanta Music Project exists and her success would not have been possible without the tremendous support of our donors. As an AMP alumna, Alivia continues

Submitted by: Jack W.