Your shopping cart is currently empty.
This year’s Magic Flute Music Education Holiday Raffle benefits Marin-based Rise Up! 94965 Foundation
Prize package donated by The Magic Flute
Buy a $5 raffle ticket (or two!) for a chance to win a brand-new Breedlove Organic Collection Wildwood Concert Cutaway CE Acoustic/Electric guitar in satin Whisky Burst, plus a Fender acoustic gig bag, Ernie Ball Axis Capo, Levy’s strap, Snark tuner, and D’Addario EJ16 strings (over $800 value) while supporting a very worthy cause–Music Education for Kids!!
The more tickets you purchase, the better your odds of winning and the more we can contribute to Rise Up! 94965 Foundation.
Tickets on sale Nov 7 - Dec 20 (until 6p)
Winner will be randomly selected and announced Dec 20, 7p PST
Enriching Lives through Music Education
Arts+ Scholars Foundation, the first recipient of our Holiday Music Education Fundraiser in 2020 has joined forces with the dynamic Sausalito School District Foundation to form Rise Up! 94965 Foundation, a community-based 501(c)(3) non-profit with the mission of ensuring that TK-8th grade students in the 94965 school district have equitable access to educational and cultural activities above and beyond what is provided by public funding.
Through donations, volunteers and educators, this group has proudly accomplished restoration of the visual and musical arts that were eliminated in 2015. But as we all know, it takes constant vigilance, education, and advocacy to prevent the arts from becoming the first target of budget cuts. The dedicated Rise Up! 94965 Foundation Arts Committee will continue to exercise that vigilance, education, and advocacy, with long-time art teacher Ellen Franz as an active Board member.
Rise Up! 94965 Foundation raises money for music and outdoor education, and teacher grants. The monies generated by this year’s Holiday Music Education raffle will benefit their growing music program, which includes middle school students’ playing in their newly founded steel pan drum orchestra!
Why Start with Steel Drum?
Beginning a middle school drum orchestra grew out of two happy circumstances: available instruments (from an earlier music program), AND the arrival of Alex Merideth! Alex, a phenomenal high school music teacher, had recently moved to the area from Arizona. He was looking for an opportunity to work with elementary and middle school students, his graduate work involved developing a steel pan drum instructional curriculum, and at Rise Up! 94965 Foundation, he found an open position for a music teacher!
Working with steel pan drums has allowed students, most of whom have not received music instruction for several years, if at all, to immediately participate in and become part of an orchestra. Students at each of the three middle school grade-levels, who were just introduced to these instruments in mid-August of this new school year, are already performing a full composition together and are at work on a second.
Just the Beginning!
Students served by Rise Up! 94965 Foundation have been missing out on a vital dimension of their overall education and what it means to be fully human. But now, with both the district’s and the school foundation’s support of a full-time music teacher, students have the opportunity to grow and learn with music as a core piece of their educational curricula. In years soon to come, they will be prepared and able to join bands, orchestras and ensembles in high school, as students from Mill Valley Middle and others are able to do. Steel pan drum orchestras will become part of high school curricula with these students as experienced leaders within them. All in all, the kids served by Rise Up! 94965 Foundation will be able to more fully participate in equitable high school and college experiences with their peers.
Right Place, Right Time
Alex Merideth
Music teacher Alexander Merideth is definitely in the right place, at the right time! After joining the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy in the Sausalito Marin City School District two years ago, he is well on his way in building a music program from scratch.
In year one, he began with elementary grade students, providing music instruction centered on the creation of a steel pan drum orchestra ensemble. In this, his second year, he has added middle school grade students to the program. Merideth believes that providing a rigorous, standards-based, music education will prepare his students for successful transition and participation in high school level band, orchestra, choir and other ensembles.
Having previously served as the Guitar/Drumline Director at Catalina Foothills High School in Tucson, AZ, Merideth’s students held section and principal positions in the Arizona All-State Band and Orchestra, the NAfME All-National Honors Ensembles, and the National Youth Orchestra Organization at Carnegie Hall.
His own performing highlights include being a member of the Fred Sanford Award-Winning 2010 Phantom Regiment Front Ensemble, The Birdsong Academy Steel Drum Orchestra at Panorama Trinidad/Tobago International Steel Pan Drum Competition, section percussion with the Southern Arizona Symphony, Arizona Symphony, and Arizona Wind Ensemble, as well as substitute with the Tucson Symphony and Arizona Opera.
He holds both a BM in Percussion Performance and an MM in Music Education from the University of Arizona in Tucson, AZ.