Atlanta Music Project Helps Kids Make Beautiful Music

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February 28, 2017

Photography Lynsey Weatherspoon

The Atlanta Music Project is a nonprofit providing intensive, tuition-free music education for underserved youth right in their neighborhood. The organization was inspired by the El Sistema movement that has its origins in Venezuela. In 1975, Jose Antonio Abreu founded El Sistema (“the system”) in Venezuela to teach Venezuela’s impoverished to play instruments and participate in youth orchestras around the country. Ultimately, El Sistema became a transformative tool for youth to improve their socioeconomic status, stay away from crime and for some, become professional musicians and teachers. In 2009, Abreu was awarded a TED prize and partnered with the New England Conservatory to establish the Sistema Fellows Program, a training program for “gifted young musicians, passionateabout their art and social justice and dedicated to bringing El Sistema to the United States and other countries.” Dantes Rameau, AMP’s co-founder and executive director, and Aisha Moody, co-founder and director of AMP’s choir program, are both graduates of the Sistema Fellows Program.

Now in its seventh year of programming and serving 250 students at five sites, AMP provides students with an instrument, a teaching artist, classes and numerous public performance opportunities. AMP does not hold entrance auditions—the only requirement is a commitment to attend all classes. AMP’s programs include the AMP Orchestra; AMPlify, the choral program of the Atlanta Music Project; the AMP Academy, which provides advanced musical training to AMP’s most talented and dedicated students; and the AMP Summer Series, a music festival and school. AMP’s