President Barack Obama once remarked, “The future belongs to young people with an education and the imagination to create.”

At the Levitt Foundation, we could not agree more. A well-educated youth is conducive to our vision of an America filled with free live music in public spaces and equitable, healthy, and thriving communities. As PBS notes, our capacity to imagine new possibilities—to discover fresh ways to be and create—grows when our knowledge grows.

Our faith in human creativity is, in part, what drives our Foundation to spend down $150 million over the next two decades. By sunsetting, we are passing the torch to future generations, entrusting them to carry forth our efforts to reimagine American society’s relationship with the arts.

That’s why in addition to supporting free concerts in public spaces, the Levitt Foundation partners with organizations working to nurture a more equitable creative ecosystem by expanding opportunities for arts access and participation—many of which focus on arts education. Numerous Levitt venues also host arts education programming alongside their free concerts.

The benefits of arts education are countless. Leading national arts advancement nonprofit Americans for the Arts notes that increased access and involvement in arts education fosters student success—which leads to economic success as young people enter the workforce. Similarly, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences argues that arts education strengthens community and civic engagement overall.

Further highlighting the role of the arts in our society is National Arts in Education Week: a nationwide celebration of the transformative power of the arts in education. The result of changemaking advocacy efforts led by Americans for the Arts (of which the Levitt Foundation is proudly a longtime member) National Arts in Education Week was established by way of a U.S. congressional resolution in 2010. Today, the weeklong commemoration, which starts on the second Sunday in September, continues to emphasize the necessity of arts education, its benefits, and its role in creating equitable arts access for all students.

While National Arts in Education Week takes place in September, Levitt partner organizations and venues demonstrate their commitment to empowering communities through arts access all year long. Keep reading to learn about a few of these exciting initiatives, bringing the power of accessible arts education to cities and neighborhoods from coast to coast!

Cultivating Summer Camp Connections

Fun fact: in addition to Levitt venues across the country programming free, high-caliber concerts featuring award-winning musicians, they’re oftentimes nurturing the next generation of performing artists eager to bring communities together through music.

Such is the case at Levitt Pavilion Dayton and Levitt Shell Sioux Falls—where young community members access a hands-on performing arts curriculum spanning a variety of areas while they deepen connections with their peers.

Levitt Pavilion Dayton

During the summer months, the imagination roams free at Levitt Dayton’s Signature Levitt Music & Arts Camp, which, since 2021, has been part of the Ohio venue’s “Levitt Connect: Inspire” educational outreach initiative to uplift and empower Dayton youth.

A partnership with local organizations Signature Educational Solutions and the Home of Urban Creative Arts, the summer camp is an immersive weeklong program open to all Montgomery County and Greater Dayton area teens with a budding penchant for all things music and arts. This year’s camp offered a comprehensive curriculum straddling all sides of the arts and music ecosystem—from songwriting, performance, movement, creative writing, and character development to tech and stage management and creative entrepreneurship—instructed by teaching artists local to the Dayton area.

Teaching Dayton’s creative dreamers a variety of musical skills, the 2024 Signature Levitt Music and Arts Camp was entirely free for campers this year and ended in a thrilling student showcase performed on the Levitt Dayton stage.

And what would be a summer camp at the Levitt without a culminating experience on the revered Levitt stage? At the end of their learning journeys, each student in the program put their newly expanded creative skillset to the test at the 2024 Signature Levitt Music & Arts Camp Showcase. Appearing as opening talent for Emmy-nominated headliner Alexander Star & the Golden People, students wooed audience members of all ages and backgrounds with a sensational live performance.

Beyond making joyous music, each cohort of students makes new social connections that foster a sense of belonging for kids of all walks of life, explains Phil Hoffheimer, Levitt Dayton’s Director of Community Relations and Partnerships.

“Year after year, it’s wonderful to see youth from diverse backgrounds come together to create something beautiful on our Levitt stage,” Hoffheimer said. “A shared interest in music and the arts is what brings them to the camp, but they leave as a community of friends. The Signature Levitt Music and Arts Camp gave these kids confidence and understanding of one another, which to us is the greatest success of all.”

And as if that weren’t enough, thanks to overwhelming community support, Levitt Dayton’s 2024 summer camp was entirely free for all 30 students, who were each gifted a full tuition scholarship for the program.

Levitt Shell Sioux Falls

A similar impactful story recently came alive in South Dakota at Levitt Shell Sioux Falls’ Levitt Jam Camp, which welcomed its first cohort of young learners this summer.

A partnership between Levitt at the Falls and Sioux Falls’ historic local liberal arts college, Augustana University, the brand-new summer camp program unfolded as an experience in fostering connections through musical exploration across a variety of genres relevant to Sioux Falls’ diverse community. Students had the unique opportunity to enroll in the focus area most identifiable and exciting to them: Latin music, hip-hop, or songwriting.

Levitt Sioux Falls Community Engagement Director Rose Ann Hofland explained that the three subprograms—all instructed by local musicians and music educators, including members of Augustana’s School of Music—collectively reflected Levitt Sioux Falls’ commitment to amplifying diverse sounds and bridging the community’s access needs.

Levitt Shell Sioux Falls’ Levitt Jam Camp featured curricula in songwriting, Latin music, and hip-hop, bridging the community’s access needs and providing students with a safe, inclusive space for creative expression.

“We set out to offer opportunities in subject areas of music education that were not currently offered in the Sioux Falls community,” Hofland explained. The program’s “pay what you can” structure, which allowed for youth of diverse socioeconomic statuses to participate, increased access to the community as well.

In the Levitt Latin Jam Camp, students ages 9-11 explored the expressiveness of global rhythms as they learned the ropes of Latin percussion, singing, dancing, and Latin American culture at large during a week of hands-on activities. Meanwhile, tweens and teens ages 11-14 found their flow at the Levitt Hip Hop Jam Camp, where they leveled up their rap repertoire—from lyric development and hip-hop dance basics to beat-making and music production. At the Levitt Songwriting Jam Camp, girls and nonbinary youth had the opportunity to sharpen their songwriting pen, build confidence, and feel inspired in a safe, open-minded environment.

Channeling their inner La Santa Cecilia (Latin fusion), Nur-D (hip-hop), and Taylor Swift (no explanation needed), all 44 students had an exciting chance to participate in each jam camp’s culminating showcase concert. And, in the quintessential summer camp fashion, the young music makers left with a whole new peer group.

“From fostering new friendships to discovering new community mentors, Levitt Jam Camp was a wonderful opportunity for students to connect with local musicians, educators, and their fellow young creators,” Hofland said. “It was a truly empowering experience for Sioux Falls youth.”

From School to the Stage

When it comes to participating in our country’s arts and music ecosystem, age is just a number—proven by the imaginative teens who have rocked the stage at Kansas City, Missouri’s Celebrate AMERI’KANA Music and Arts Festival, supported by the Levitt Foundation since 2022.

Unfolding every year in the city’s historic Northeast neighborhood, Celebrate AMERI’KANA is a free, all-ages festival on a multilayered mission to celebrate local and national BIPOC roots musicians, highlight the diversity of KC’s music and arts ecology, and uplift Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and Indigenous youth performers.

Each year, the youth stage at Celebrate AMERI’KANA, a free music festival presented by Levitt partner Art as Mentorship and Levitt artist Making Movies, amplifies the voices of Kansas City’s young, underrepresented musicians.

It is not exactly common practice to offer music students an opportunity to jam on a real stage for an audience of thousands of festival-goers. However, for Celebrate AMERI’KANA co-presenters Making Movies (the Kansas City-based, Latin GRAMMY-nominated Latin rock act who has performed on many Levitt stages) and their local nonprofit Art as Mentorship, empowering kids and teens through music education and participation is second nature.

Founded by Making Movies member Enrique Chi, Art as Mentorship is committed to transforming young, underrepresented artists through access to mentorship, skill development, inclusive community, and mental health support. The nonprofit’s flagship program, Rebel Song Academy, is supported by a network of GRAMMY-recognized industry professionals who mentor students.

Rebel Song Academy’s 12-week curriculum provides a 360-degree view into all facets of musicianship, including performance. Enter the 25 young performers—students of Rebel Song Academy and local music education institutions Base Academy of Music and Harmony Project KC—whose spirited live instrumentations infused unbridled glee into KC’s beloved Concourse Park at Celebrate AMERI’KANA 2023 last September.

Parallel to the festival’s main stage, Celebrate AMERI’KANA’s youth stage presented dozens of talented teen creatives making waves in Kansas City’s deep-rooted music ecosystem.

In addition to bringing audiences to their feet for a lively rock ‘n’ roll experience, the youth stage also brought together the Midwest community itself to celebrate its young creatives and take pride in Kansas City’s resilient artistic tapestry.

This year’s Celebrate AMERI’KANA festival, which took place on July 27, continued to platform Kansas City’s spectacular student musicians.

Concert, Meet Classroom

Sometimes, students bring the music. Other times, the music is brought to the students.

Such is the case with Tacoma, Washington’s SuperFolk! Festival: a free, collaborative live music experience unfolding across various community spaces in the Pacific Northwest locale.

This year, with Levitt Foundation support, the dynamic festival brought the excitement of free musical performances to Tacoma residents who often lack access to live music—including young students at two underserved local public schools with large economically disadvantaged student populations, Roosevelt Elementary and Blix Elementary.

Presented by Whippoorwill Arts—a social justice-driven arts nonprofit on a mission to provide opportunities for roots musicians and artists to thrive and create—and arts organization Northwest Folklife, this year’s SuperFolk! Festival took place in March and injected some pre-spring-break levity into students’ school days.

The concerts featured numerous award-winning roots performers whose cultural backgrounds were identifiable to the schools’ unique student body. Both schools enjoy richly diverse student populations, with over 80 percent of learners representing marginalized groups; musical artists programmed for the Tacoma public schools intentionally reflected this multiculturalism as well.

At Roosevelt, Black American blues keyboardist Mike “Spiderman” Robinson delighted 50 upper elementary students with his warm and soulful tickling of the ivories—not to mention the school gym transforming into a dance party, when Robinson surprised the students with a jubilant reimagining of Miley Cyrus’ “Flowers,” sparking enthusiastic squeals that turned into joyous singing.

As part of the Superfolk! Festival, presented by Levitt partner Whipporwill Arts, blues keyboardist Mike “Spiderman” Robinson brought together 50 underserved Tacoma elementary school students for a fun afternoon of community-building through live music.

Then there was Afro-Cuban band Sabor de mi Cuba, comprising hand percussionist Carlitos Medrano and pianist Julio de la Cruz, who dazzled a whopping 150 Blix Elementary students with their sunny Latin grooves, paying homage to the sounds of rumba and Cuban-style salsa.

The impact of these two SuperFolk! concerts was multifaceted. Underscoring the power of representation, musicians of color Robinson and Sabor de mi Cuba collectively demonstrated to culturally minoritized students that they, too, can succeed in the arts.

The concerts also acted as social bridging opportunities, bringing students (and faculty!) of all classrooms and grade levels together to laugh, smile, dance, and sing alongside faces both familiar and new, nurturing a stronger campus community.

As this year’s National Arts and Education Week rolls on, and we look back at all the inspiring creative learning taking place across the Levitt network this past year, we are thrilled to support the next generation as they build community through music—whether in Dayton, Sioux Falls, Kansas City, Tacoma, or a town or city near you. We look forward to continuing to support the ecosystem that nurtures arts education programs like these!

The Levitt Foundation is committed to spotlighting and supporting events, programs, and initiatives that expand access and nurture an equitable arts and music ecosystem during National Arts in Education Week and beyond. Learn more about our festival and events partnerships here.