Nashville, March 30, 2021 – Give A Note Foundation (GAN), which provides support for K-12 public school music education programs nationwide, has joined forces with other leading music education non-profits to raise more than $50,000 to provide Nashville high school and middle school students with music-specific safety equipment that ensures safe participation in making music. This combined effort – under Give A Note’s Let’s Play Music Fund – is now providing more than 8500 Instrument Masks and Bell Covers for brass and woodwinds to be distributed to Metro Nashville Public Schools.
Give A Note marshaled support and donations from key funding partners Save The Music Foundation, SongFarm, Gibson Gives, Music Makes Us, Sony Music Group, and AllianceBernstein. “Nashville is known as Music City so we all want to keep band practice going as schools re-open this month,” says GAN CEO Beth Slusher. “These specialized instrument masks and bell covers will make it possible for students to come together and play music safely.”
Following guidelines set by the International Coalition of Performing Arts Aerosol Study, Slusher worked with music and apparel partners to develop a unique instrument mask pattern and bell covers. Slusher says, “What’s so great about our mask vs. those sold by other music education companies, is the hands-free flap that makes it possible for students to easily position the instrument into playing position.
Slusher says multiple artists have come onboard in support of music education in schools. At an event today (3/30 at John Overton High School in Nashville) celebrating the coalition’s major donation of safety equipment, three-time Grammy winning saxophonist/member of Dave Matthews Band/Vanderbilt University music educator Jeff Coffin will address the vital benefits of music ed for students. Joining him at the event both in person and virtually will be SongFarm co-founders multi-Grammy winning producer/engineer F. Reid Shippen and Grammy nominated songwriter (29 #1 radio hit songs) Ross Copperman; Grammy nominated artists Cassadee Pope and Devon Gilfillian; and singer/songwriter Caitlin Canty.
The event will also feature a performance from the Overton H.S. band using the specialized Instrument Masks and bell covers so they can once again play and practice safely. Attendees include MNPS dignitaries, Council Member Jeff Syracuse and representatives from music education organizations who’ve contributed to the Let’s Play Music Fund.
Dr. Adrienne Battle, MNPS Director of Schools, says “As our middle school and high school band students start returning to the joys of practicing and performing together, this gift will go a long way toward helping them do it safely. Thank you to Give A Note Foundation, Music Makes Us, and all of their partners and donors in Nashville and across the country for this extremely generous donation to our schools.”
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