Thanks to donations to the D’Addario Foundation‘s Music Education for Girls Initiative, dedicated students in D’Addario’s free stringed instrument program will receive $2,000 scholarships to continue their musical training.
“These young women first started with us at the age of ten and have achieved more than we ever imagined,” says Suzanne D’Addario Brouder, executive director of the D’Addario Foundation. “After four years and 800 hours of free music training, these students have blossomed as players and individuals, winning Academic, Citizenship, and Presidential awards.”
The Long Island Lesson Program—financed completely by the D’Addario Foundation and managed by the Harmony Program—has operated for the last four years in the Copiague School District, chosen because of its constituency of high needs families. It has not had a string program for more than 30 years. The program provides six hours a week of instrument instruction more than 30 weeks a year, including summer camp.
“Some students want to attend Harvard and know they can get there through their music,” says Kelly Flynn, lead teacher for the Long Island Lesson Program. “One of our students wants to attend Juilliard for cello and to think she would have never come to that conclusion, if not for this program so graciously funded by the D’Addario Foundation. I asked that specific student what she remembers from the first day of lessons, and she remembered picking out the cello and falling in love with it. Her parents had no idea what a cello even was.”
The Copiague students will perform together in their end of the school year recital. The free event takes place Monday May 21 at the D’Addario and Company facilities in Farmingdale, New York. At the recital, D’Addario Brouder will announce the scholarship winners; the awards will cover youth orchestra fees, weekly private lessons and instruments.
As these underserved students grow beyond their middle school years, D’Addario Brouder says, “We have no doubt the trajectory of their lives has been forever changed.”
