Buffalo Rising Online

Mar 30th 2007, 4:09am By Gabrielle Bouliane

BRO had a long talk with Denise Botticelli-Ambrusko, Executive Coordinator of Music is Art this week, and got the low-down on what the company is really all about – not just an annual festival, but a year-long offering of programs and services that help kids at risk. In case you’ve been under a rock for the past few years, the Music is Art Foundation, incorporated in 2004, is the non-profit brainchild of Buffalo rock icon Robbie Takac, who benefited from music lessons in public school when growing up in Western New York and became a part of the nationally recognized band, The Goo Goo Dolls. Robbie is one of many Buffalonians who not only keep their roots in town strong, but are working hard to give back to the city what they received – and then some.

Its mission seems simple but has profound impact: keeping arts education alive in public schools through donations of money and materials, as well as offering mentoring and instruction from the private sector.

Buffalonians are by now familiar with the group’s Instrument Drive, which takes donated instruments from the community and repairs and distributes them to local schools – last year’s drive raised $100,000 – but there are several other programs which deserve equal recognition by the community. Today we’re going to highlight just three of them: the High School Awareness Tour, Music in Action, and Bringing the Big Easy to Buffalo.

The High School Awareness Tour is a music-based motivational assembly delivered to high schools that focuses on personal responsibility. The Tour brings young professional musicians directly to the students, speaking to them in a language they understand, rock and roll. What’s different is the message – Music is Art reinforces the concept that self-motivation can lead to personal fulfillment and empowerment. Balancing that strength is the acceptance of personal responsibility, leading kids to more positive decision-making. The program is designed by professional musicians and is free to the schools themselves. After more than 100 schools and 80,000 high school students, Denise states, “I always thought the vehicle for change was going to be teenagers. Adults always look at them as very apathetic, and they are, because there’s nothing for them to be passionate about, but they’re looking for it. And what’s cooler than being involved in music? Then you teach them music can be a vehicle for social change, whether it’s fundraising or saying something, and they’ll take it and they’ll run with it. It’s great, it’s amazing.”

She continued, “The assembly program is really about presenting the idea that music can be a coping strategy for dealing with social pressures, mental health issues, depression, stuff like that. Even if you don’t play an instrument, all these kids go home and they cope with music. After the program [at Public School 84, with developmentally disabled and physically disabled children] we went into the classroom with the bands and talked to the kids, and a kid raised his hand and talked about how when he’s angry he listens to angry music and it calms him down, if he’s sad, he listens to sad music, and that’s how he gets through his day. He said if he didn’t have music, he didn’t know how he would deal with it. Right then and there, he said, ‘I would love to help you guys talk to other kids about this,’ and he volunteered to work with Crisis Services, who is another one of our partners.”

The second program she highlighted is entitled Music in Action, a fully-developed curriculum written by Takac and Bob James with support from other industry leaders. This program takes students that the school identifies as intelligent but high-risk, and puts them through a program whereby one day a month, they are taken out of their normal classes and attend industry skills training with a full curriculum of its own. This is no mere vocational program – students work directly with national-level production staff and Grammy award-winning artists to experience the entire process of the music industry.

Says Denise: “From start to finish, they start a record company, they do the A&R, they find a band, record the band (at Trackmaster Studios), they put out the CD, they do a benefit concert, design the marketing and graphics (Brian Gruner of Hero Design), but the great thing about it is that each CD has a platform. The Buffalo Academy of Performing and Visual Arts was our demonstration model this year, and their platform was “Be True, Be You” about peer pressure. All of the funds then go back into the H.E.A.R.T. Coalition, which is about teen mental health and peer awareness. So not only do they get all this cool training, but it’s also got a community service aspect. One of the things I love about Music is Art is that it’s so easy to get the kids hooked on the music, but then you teach them how to use that, to better themselves or the world, or their school or whatever it is, and it sounds hokey when you say it, but they “get” it, and it doesn’t sound hokey to them when they’re doing it.”

The last program highlighted today is the new year-long project, Bringing the Big Easy to Buffalo. Here, MIA has teamed up with the Buffalo Convention and Visitor Bureau, and received a music fund grant which allows them to support musicians which have been displaced by the Katrina disaster by bringing them to Buffalo for concerts and educational programs. Says Denise: “There are many, many musicians that have been displaced by Katrina. They used to be able to make their living without leaving New Orleans, but now they have to travel in order to survive. Every month for the next year we’re bringing a band or an artist to Buffalo to showcase their take on New Orleans style, whether it’s Cajun, whether it’s funk, blues, jazz or rock and roll. They also do an educational component during the day, going to public school and presenting to the students. Ellis Marsalis is our first presenter, he’s doing a workshop with the Performing Arts Jazz Ensemble, and then that evening there’s a ticketed concert. At the end of the series, if we get all the sponsorships on track, what we’re hoping to do is raise about $50,000 that we’re going to use to purchase instruments that go back into the public school systems here in town.”

“The great thing about that is not just the music, but when artists meet students, they are going to have stories to tell about their culture, about living in New Orleans, about dealing with hardship. Especially if you’re going into the Buffalo Public Schools, students are seeing musicians and artists that look like them, that have been through the same things that they are going through, and are working and struggling and surviving which I think that that’s the biggest lesson –there’s always somebody doing something, no matter how hard it is, that’s successful.”

These are only a sampling of the programs being offered by the non-profit foundation, which also include H.E.A.R.T. for Mental Health, the Girlz Rock Clinic, a Teen Battle of the Bands, Music is Hope, and of course, the Music is Art Festival.

How can you help? Denise suggests, “Instruments are great, but the thing that we need now is funding. Corporate sponsorship has really what’s been what’s keeping a lot of our programs going, but as you get into the fourth and fifth year of programs, it’s inevitable that some of your sponsorship is going to wane. What we’ve never had is a donation drive, where people have donated personal donations, whether ten dollars or a hundred dollars, and that’s still an area that we’ve been foundering in that a lot of other charities have been very successful in fostering. I’m not sure if there’s a misconception because of the GooGoo Doll name being involved with us. Trust me, Robbie does put a lot of his blood, sweat and tears, as well as his personal money into this organization, but something like the High School Awareness Tour costs over $1000 every time we present it, between 50 and 80 times a year. You can do the math. It’s a very expensive program to present. If somebody were to donate $100, that would cover the lights of one assembly. That’s one of the areas that we haven’t had a lot of success. The other thing is just going to the website and looking at the programs and really understanding is that what we do is bigger than just throwing a party. In terms of the community, there’s still the misconception amongst the older set, the business folks, that all we really do is the festival. In fact, the goal is to affect youth in the city and in Western New York, and to give them a vehicle for change. We get so many interns and volunteers that are high school and college age that in the past five years have seen one of our programs. That’s what made me want to get involved.”

For more information or to get involved, please see their website.