Category: Arts Leadership

17-year-old cellist, Khari Joyner, from Atlanta, GA, is passionate about music’s power to heal. During his interview on From the Top’s live taping in El Paso, TX (airing the week of October 19), Khari spoke about his experience overcoming lymphoma cancer last year and how music and the power of positive thinking helped get him […]

Last year 17-year-old flutist Chaz Salazar performed on From the Top’s Mesa, AZ taping in November as a Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award recipient. These days, Chaz is involved in several projects, including leading flute sectionals and giving private lessons to a few students at his old elementary school in Phoenix, AZ. As a […]

Way back in 2006, pianist Ji-Yong appeared on From the Top’s radio show at the age of 14. But even then, the pressure of a performance on national radio was nothing new to him. Ji-Yong was signed to a major artist management company at a tender 10 years old, and he’s been playing professionally ever […]

The federal United We Serve initiative is a new movement to mobilize volunteerism across the country. For those of you who follow this blog regularly, you are well aware of the amazing  contributions that From the Top alumni make in their communities  everyday. A few examples of which are: Griffin Gaffney’s free music lesson program […]

New York Crew in New Jersey We just wrapped up another year in our partnership with Young Audiences New Jersey (YANJ) to bring From the Top alums into Newark schools through a grant from the Prudential Foundation. In addition to implementing a Make Your Own Radio Show program in three schools, we started a new […]

Our live radio taping in El Paso, TX last month marked the fantastic milestone of more than $1,000,000 in scholarships awarded through our Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award program. To those not familiar with the program, every year the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award is given to twenty-five promising young artists from around […]

15-year-old harpist Sage Po is a recipient of From the Top’s Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award and recently performed at our El Paso taping on June 13 (airing nationally the week of October 19.) Below, Sage reports on her summer studies at the American Harp Society’s Summer Institute, made possible through her $10,000 Young […]

Patrick McGuire is back from Tanzania! The 19-year-old cellist and From the Top alum has completed the two-week arts program for young adults called the “Arusha Arts Initiative” that he designed with five of his peers at Juilliard. (If you want the backstory, we blogged it! Here‘s an interview we did with Patrick when he […]

Ann Gregg, from Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute (and From the Top’s former education director!) brings us news of a great opportunity for musicians in the New York area who are college-aged and older, and want to give back to their communities. According to Carnegie Hall, the new community program, called “Musical Connections,” will  work […]

From the Top encouraged 17-year-old composer and Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award recipient Michael Taylor to plan an arts outreach program after his December appearance on the radio program in Indianapolis, IN. He recently sent us this update following his visit to his local elementary school in Arlington, TX: Today I went over to […]

From the Top Alum and Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist, Ren Martin-Doike along with friends Sangwoo Kim, Alex Ayers, and Jake Woollen performed as a string quartet for the entire first grade class at the Fairview Elementary school on May 14 in her hometown of Bloomington, IN.  This year Ren was a part of a […]

We recently posted about 18-year-old cellist and From the Top alum Patrick McGuire and his arts outreach trip to Arusha, Tanzania. Since then, his group has made some great progress towards their goal with a grant from Julliard. Patrick sent us the following update: Hi everyone! It’s been awhile since we sent a Facebook update, […]

On April 8th, 2009, 20-year-old  Sebastian Baverstam visited the Epiphany School in Dorchester, MA to lead a morning assembly for 6th-8th grade students. Sebastian, a cellist currently in his sophomore year at New England Conservatory, first appeared on From the Top at age 10 and continues to stay involved with From the Top through our […]

18-year-old cellist Patrick McGuire, a From the Top alum and current student at The Juilliard School, is co-organizing an arts outreach trip to Tanzania in May called the Arusha Arts Initiative.  The group will be traveling to the Umoja Youth Empowerment Center in the city of Arusha to help strengthen community-building and leadership skills in […]

Interested in taking action but don’t know where to start? Already have a project but need funding and exposure? Check out this great organization for ideas, funding opportunities and general inspiration and let us know what you do! www.dosomething.org

Portland’s KGW Channel 8 News recently featured a segment about From the Top alum and violist Griffin Gaffney’s free lesson program. Click here to check it out!

On Friday, February 6th, 2009, 19-year-old violinist, Julia Glenn, and 16-year-old cellist, Rainer Crosett, visited the Community Therapeutic Day School in Lexington, MA. Julia and Rainer introduced their instruments and each played a solo piece before joining forces in a duet. All of the students, ages 5 through 12 were present, and they were a […]

Last year after appearing on From the Top, 17-year-old violist Griffin Gaffney was motivated by the cultural leadership workshop to take action in his community. He was passionate about creating a sustainable free-lesson program for school children in Portland and turned to From the Top as a collaborator and resource. Griffin found a local community […]