What is Anthropos?
• Anthropos Arts is a nonprofit organization that works in East Austin to bring top professional musician-mentors into low-income schools, offering free music lessons, workshops, and performance opportunities to at-risk middle and high school students. The 2013–2014 school year marks our fifteenth year, with well over 10,000 lessons, and more than $1 million in services provided at $0 cost to students, families, or schools.
• The diverse mentor-musicians who teach the Anthropos programs are some of Austin’s best performing musicians, doctoral candidates, and professors of music. They are also paid a fair wage for this work. What Do We Do?
• Individualized Lessons with Professional Mentor-Musicians: This is a free program for low-income students in East Austin middle and high schools. Each series of 10–12 lessons is taught in the school by top-notch professional musicians. Students finish the year with a public performance at Stubb’s, where they play and improvise solos alongside their mentors. Program results can be life-changing: In the last 8 years alone, in high schools where the average graduation rate is 60% , we have had 100% of our students graduate; 80% went on to college with scholarship, several of them with ‘full rides’ to study music!
• Music Workshops: Workshops are large-scale introductions to diverse music genres for students in middle and high schools. Workshops can include up to 1000 kids, and they are taught by local stars, or even major touring acts like Grammy-winners Ozomatli, Rebirth Brass Band, et al
• Performance Opportunities: Aside from our annual showcase at Stubb’s, our students also have the opportunity to perform at other seminal Austin venues and even larger public events such as Austin City Limits Festival, SXSW, Pachanga!, and lots more...
