COMMUNITY OUTREACH

ASCAP Foundation Director, Colleen McDonough, P.S. 115 Assistant Principal Miraim Borges, ASCAP's Michael Kerker, Lin-Manuel Miranda and Alexandra Lioutikoff, with 6th grade students from P.S. 115 at a post performance visit.

"CHILDREN WILL LISTEN"

The ASCAP Foundation "Children Will Listen" program was established - in honor of ASCAP member and musical theatre great Stephen Sondheim (West Side Story, Gypsy!, Pacific Overtures, A Little Night Music) - in 2005 to bring the musical theatre experience to young students nationwide. The program was named for one of the songs from his musical, Into the Woods. This educational program offers a generation of students who may never have been to the theater their first musical theatre experience. There is no cost to schools or students participating in the "Children Will Listen" program. "Chidren Will Listen" is funded by many donors who chose to honor Stephen Sondhem's 75th birthday through gifts to The ASCAP Foundation in support of this program.

AMERICA SCORES

America SCORES, an after-school program that uses poetry and soccer to inspire literacy, healthy living and civic responsibility among urban youth, has partnered with The ASCAP Foundation to present a new program, ASCAP Songwriter Residency @ America SCORES. The program is designed to provide an engaging and inspiring way for kids to express themselves through songwriting, while teaching them to value and respect their own creative work and that of others.

MUSIC IN THE SCHOOLS

This program, initiated in 2000, partners The ASCAP Foundation with VH1 Save the Music Foundation, which provides musical instruments to public schools nationwide through their "Save the Music" campaign, and with Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. "Music in the Schools" is implemented by The ASCAP Foundation to provide folios, sheet music, band arrangements and method books to each of the schools that are also recipients of musical instruments, thereby providing quality music for students to play as they learn their instruments. Alfred Publishing Co., Inc. supplies the printed music materials for recipient schools, which are selected by VH1 Save the Music Foundation.

"CREATIVITY IN THE CLASSROOM"

"Creativity in the Classroom" is designed to help students recognize their own creative work and to understand their rights as owners of intellectual property as well as the ethics of protecting the creative property of others. The premise of the project is to encourage students to label their creative work with the copyright symbol, the year, and their names, just as they see on any published, professional creative work.

While "Creativity in the Classroom" focuses on student music compositions, it is directly applicable to all types of creative work and can 'float' on top of the Standards-based goals of any number of curricula.

The ASCAP Foundation and i-SAFE, a non-profit foundation dedicated to protecting the online experiences of youth, have partnered to provide teachers with a set of tools to educate their students in the seldom taught area of intellectual property. This unique curriculum for grades 3 and 4 are called Creativity in the Classroom: Creative Ownership and Copyright.

The lesson plans are designed to teach young students fundamental intellectual property concepts as well as to teach young learners that their work and the creativity of others should be respected. Teenagers are widely regarded as the worst offenders of music piracy. Therefore, exposing pre-teens to the concepts of ownership and copyright will go a long way to proactively and positively affect their future behavior and their awareness of the value of creativity and the concept of ownership.

The interactive lessons plans, taught by certified i-SAFE instructors in schools across the country, go beyond rote learning by empowering students to use what they've learned. Age-appropriate games and activities help students reinforce learning objectives. The curriculum explores the similarities between students' physical world and their online world. Therefore, all cyber citizens have the right to free speech, privacy, and the right and responsibility to protect what they create and own.

The curriculum unit is available free of charge to i-SAFE certified teachers. Encourage teachers you know to go to a special page on the i-SAFE Web site www.isafe.org/creativelessons for more information. And, parents who want their children exposed to these dynamic intellectual property lesson plans are encouraged to call their local school and suggest that they be taught in their classrooms. For those wishing to become certified, the process is available on-line by registering and watching a series of video modules called I-Learn.

SUMMER MUSIC CAMP AT MANHATTAN SCHOOL OF MUSIC

The Summer Music Camp at Manhattan School of Music, initiated in 1999, serves musically talented New York City public school students, grades 5 through 8, from throughout the 5 boroughs. The camp provides intensive, free-of-charge musical training and performance experience that would not otherwise be available to these students. The Summer Music Camp is sponsored by The ASCAP Foundation Irving Caeser Fund, Billy Joel Fund, Manhattan School of Music and additional funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. The National Endowment for the Arts supports this program through their Learning in the Arts for Children and Youth Initiative.

Click here for more information about the Summer Music Camp >>>

SUMMER MUSIC CAMP STUDENTS PRACTICE THEIR INSTRUMENTS

SUPPORTMUSIC.COM

The ASCAP Foundation has teamed up with the Music Education Coalition, the nation's largest grass roots initiative in support of school music programs. Key to this initiative is www.SupportMusic.com an innovative website that simplifies the advocacy process by allowing community members to customize campaigns to address specific problems.

SENIOR COMPOSERS PROGRAM

The ASCAP Foundation is pleased to assist the community service activities of Hospital Audiences, Inc. by providing funding for participation of senior ASCAP composers and lyricists. This program provides much needed entertainment to the elderly, the ill and disabled and hospitalized veterans. This program is funded by a bequest from Rosalie Meyer, widow of Joseph Meyer.

Guitar teacher Jeff Entin teaches students a new chord.

THE ASCAP FOUNDATION SUMMER GUITAR PROJECT

Initiated in 1999, the collaboration between The ASCAP Foundation and The Fresh Air Fund Summer Camps for New York City children brings music to Fresh Air Fund campers by providing musical instruments and visiting composers and songwriters to the camps throughout the summer. In 2002, The ASCAP Foundation initiated the Summer Guitar Project at the Fresh Air Fund Camps by providing additional guitars and guitar instructors enabling campers to take guitar lessons.

COMMUNITY OUTREACH

The ASCAP Foundation funds many music education, talent development and humanitarian programs that serve the entire music community. Our support of these programs is in keeping with The ASCAP Foundation’s commitment to support music creators, provide music education opportunities and community access to music. Funding for these programs is made possible by contributions from ASCAP members, other foundations, corporations and music lovers throughout the country.

Some of the organizations and programs that have received on-going support from The ASCAP Foundation include:

The BEEM Foundation Music Scholarships; Inglewood, CA
Eastman School of Music Eastman Pathways Program; Rochester, NY
Elaine Kaufman Cultural Center Special Music School of America; New York, NY
Goodspeed Musicals Annual New Writer's Residence; East Haddam, CT
Hey Mozart! New Mexico Symphony Orchestra; Albequerque, NM
HMS School for Children With Cerebral Palsy "Something Magical" Program; Philadelphia, PA
Jazz Bakery; Los Angeles, CA
JazzReach Education Programs; Brooklyn, NY
Jazzmobile Free Saturday Jazz Workshops; Harlem, NY
Kid Pan Alley Children's Songwriting Program; Washington D.C., LA, TN, VA
Los Angeles County High School for the Arts; Los Angeles, CA
Louis 'Satchmo' Armstrong Summer Jazz Camp; New Orleans, LA
National Alliance for Musical Theater Producer/Writer Initiative; New York, NY
New York Philharmonic Very Young Composer Project; New York, NY
Peconic Landing, Greenport, NY
Rock 'n' Roll Camp for Girls; Goshen, MA
The Lovewell Institute for the Creative Arts; Fort Lauderdale, FL
The Walden School Summer Camp Scholarships; Dublin, NH

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