ASCAP Foundation

SUMMER SOUNDS

A Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts Helps the ASCAP Foundation Support Renowned Summer Music Camp

The student band at The ASCAP Foundation-funded Summer Music Camp at Manhattan School of Music gives a concert for parents and guests.

The ASCAP Foundation received a Summer Schools in the Arts grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support the 2005 Summer Music Camp at Manhattan School of Music. The Camp provided intensive, free-of-charge musical training to 130 talented New York City public school students, grades 5 through 8, from throughout the 5 boroughs who would not otherwise have had this educational opportunity. In addition to supplying financial support, The ASCAP Foundation arranged for guest composers to perform and inspire the campers. Songwriter David Massengill turned childhood memories into lyrics, accompanying them on the Appalachian dulcimer, in his program on the songwriting process.

Jazz great Dr. Billy Taylor, an ASCAP Foundation board member and recipient of two Peabody Awards, an Emmy, a National Medal of Arts and election to the Hall of Fame for the International Association of Jazz Educators, brought jazz history alive in a concert with performers from Jazzmobile, an organization he founded. The NEA grant was matched by The ASCAP Foundation from our Irving Caesar Fund and our Harold Arlen Fund.

Dorothy comforts Toto during a Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg song from The Wizard of Oz in a musical theater performance by New York City public school students in August at The ASCAP Foundation-funded Summer Music Camp at Manhattan School of Music.

The Summer Music Camp was also sponsored by the New York City Department of Education and Manhattan School of Music, with a special grant from the Altman Foundation. Dr. Taylor's concert was funded by a grant from The Louis Armstrong Educational Foundation.