Blog
Celebrating Black History Month With Three Trailblazing Levitt Performers
February is Black History Month, which means there’s no better time to celebrate the incalculable contributions that Black Americans have made to this country’s history and culture. And there are few places where these contributions are more numerous, or obvious, than in music. From jazz to blues, hip-hop, soul, funk, disco, techno, rock and roll,…
Levitt Performers Win Eight Awards at the 65th GRAMMYs
On Sunday night, the Recording Academy handed out its 65th annual GRAMMY Awards at the Crypto Arena in Los Angeles. And as usual, there were plenty of past Levitt performers among the winners, for a total of eight awards! Taking home one of the GRAMMYs’ “Big Four” general field awards was Samara Joy, who made…
Levitt AMP Community Spotlight: Flint, Michigan
For decades, Flint, Michigan has loomed large in the American imagination, and not always for the best of reasons. Following a mostly prosperous early history that peaked with its role as a booming General Motors factory town in the 1950s and ‘60s, the mid-sized city about an hour’s drive from Detroit has since experienced a…
Levitt AMP Community Spotlight: Harrisonburg, Virginia
Andrea Dono has always known that residents of Harrisonburg, Virginia, are an enthusiastic bunch. As executive director of Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance, an organization founded to enliven the city’s once declining downtown, she’s witnessed that enthusiasm firsthand during numerous community events. And yet even she was surprised by the embrace of last fall’s Levitt AMP campaign,…
The Levitt Foundation Salutes the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I am convinced that men hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other. They don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other. And they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other.” – Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,…
Levitt AMP Community Spotlight: Waco, Texas
For decades, Austin has been virtually synonymous with central Texas’ cutting-edge music and arts scene. Yet there are plenty of other central Texas communities that are making their own powerful contributions to the region’s artistic heritage, and Waco is particularly ready for its close-up. Starting in late spring, the Levitt AMP Waco Music Series will…
Best of 2022: A Playlist of Levitt Staff Favorites
Here’s a little secret about the staff of the Levitt Foundation: we tend to be music fans. Like, big music fans. That’s part of the reason why we spend all our time helping nonprofits in cities and towns across the country bring free, live music to their communities—and that’s just at our day jobs. If…
Levitt Looks Back on an Extraordinary 2022 Season
From Alaska to Florida to multiple places in between, free Levitt concerts brought joy, connection, and a shared sense of community to more than 750,000 people this past year. The Levitt Foundation was proud to support 25 nonprofits in towns and cities nationwide, which presented more than 500 free concerts across the Levitt network of…
Advancing Equity to Create Thriving Downtowns: Key Takeaways From Levitt Leaders at IDA Conference
Over the past 15+ years, the Levitt Foundation has partnered with communities of all sizes to help bring thousands of free concerts to towns and cities across the nation, harnessing the power of live music to reinvigorate public spaces and strengthen the social fabric of communities by bringing people together of all ages and backgrounds….
Celebrating Indigenous Artists in Commemoration of Native American Heritage Month
Tribe leader Chief Seattle once said, “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.” For centuries, the spiritual beliefs, artistic rituals, and governing practices of Native American culture have paved…