MOCKINGBIRD DONATES $36K MORE TO MUSIC EDUCATION
Eight new grants fund diverse programs nationwide, internationally

An all-volunteer group of Phish fans announced today that it will donate an additional $36,466 to music education for children. Eight grants will fund instruments, instructorships, curriculum development, and professional development for teachers. The funds will benefit low-income, native-born, and gifted children from California to Connecticut, and Kentucky to Kosovo.

The Mockingbird Foundation, which has no salary or paid staff, generates funds through the 928-page Phish Companion (Backbeat Books) and the double-CD tribute album Sharin’ in the Groove (independent) and donates all net proceeds to charity. This is the Foundation’s third round of competitive grants, and brings the Foundation’s total disbursements to more than $170,000.

The eight newly announced grants include bluegrass, jazz, orchestral, Caribbean, African, Latin American, and Kosovar music:

• $3,500 to Yucaipa-Calimesa Joint Unified School District (Yucaipa, CA) to purchase additional instruments for Toot Your Own Horn, a community-wide loan program for fifth grade students who want to learn to play but whose families cannot afford to rent or purchase instruments. The grant matches funds collected by parents.
• $5,000 to Shropshire Music Foundation (Litchfield, AZ) for the Kosovo Youth Performance Project, a summer-camp-based program of the Kosovo Children’s Music Initiative which will involve Kosovar Albanian, Serbian, Bosniak, and Roma (Gypsy) youth (ages 7 to 16) in the composition, staging, and public performance of a musical production promoting human rights and multi-ethnic tolerance in Gjakove in summer 2002.
• $3,946 to Riverview Elementary School (Sioux City, IA) to fully fund Jambo!, a six-week-long unit of hands-on participation in a traditional Zimbabwean miramba ensemble for the 240 native-born minority students, ESL (English as a Second Language) immigrant students, and low-income students in grades 3-5.
• $5,000 to Harcum College (Bryn Mawr, PA) to provide eight full scholarships for low-income teens (ages 11 to 17) from Philadelphia public schools to attend a residential Summer Music Program during the summer of 2002.
• $4,500 to Feed God’s Children (Flemingsburg, KY) to provide instructors, instruments, and other needs for the implementation of “Music for Kids”, a set of master classes in banjo, mandolin, fiddle, and bluegrass vocalization for 40 at-risk chilidren (ages 6 to 18) in Kentucky’s economically distressed Appalachian counties.
• $5,000 to the East Bay Center for the Performing Arts (Richmond, CA) to purchase keyboards for a new introductory music class for new students, percussion instruments from various cultures (Brazilian, Caribbean, West African, and Mexican) for a World Percussion class, and an accordian for Resident Company director and master Mexican folklorist Artemio Posadas.
• $4,970.22 to Conte West Hills Magnet School (New Haven, CT) for the instruments and curricular materials necessary for a World Music Drumming program that will reach more than 670 students with the music of Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean.
• $5,000 to Colden Center for the Performing Arts at Queens College (Flushing, NY) for the Jazz Residency Program, which introduces jazz to high school youth, to develop a teaching curriculum for six jazz clinics, develop and produce a student handbook, and establish a professional development workshop for high school band teachers.

For more information on these and other grantees benefitting from Mockingbird proceeds, see our list of grantees.