Dear friend of Oaktown Jazz Workshops,
Thanks to support from individuals like you, we have been able to continue teaching, encouraging, and assisting young musicians through this remarkably difficult year. 2020 began with a jam-packed schedule of community concerts and workshops. Our Youth Performance Ensemble played for thousands at the Oakland A’s FanFest, and great local musicians were performing at our Jack London Square venue.
Then COVID-19 hit. As Oaktown Jazz Workshops’ young musicians sheltered in place, we loaned them high-quality saxophones, pianos, basses, and drum sets to play at home. We launched weekly Hear & Now listening assignments, focusing on the contributions of jazz innovators. Our Core Faculty and Youth Mentors host an online video discussion after each assignment, during which the kids share their feedback on the music, while our instructors convey their first-hand knowledge of how jazz has developed over time, reflecting their many decades of performance experience.
As part of our Jazz Encounters master class series, Oaktown Jazz Workshops brought Bay Area violinist Mads Tolling and legendary bassist Cecil McBee to talk and jam with our young musicians. By spring, we moved our Jazz Encounters online and hosted sessions with Oaktown Jazz Workshops Emissary Richard Howell and Advisory Board members Joshua Redman and John Santos. We connected our kids with other special opportunities, like The New School’s Zoom class with saxophone legend Sonny Rollins.
To keep students active in pursuit of their craft, Oaktown Jazz Workshops has launched private one-on-one lessons, engaging our extended family of talented alumni as online instructors. Our founding director, Khalil Shaheed, created Oaktown Jazz Workshops in 1994 to promote the history and tradition of jazz music. The community Khalil started has grown greatly over the years, and is now coming together to support the next generation of young musicians during this critical time.
We established the Khalil Shaheed Scholarship fund to cover the cost of instruction for dedicated young musicians whose families could not afford tuition. This year, your donation will go directly to supporting these young musicians through one-on-one lessons. Your contribution to this fund will encourage our children’s creativity, elevate music education and appreciation, and enrich our community.
We can’t wait to return to in-person learning, jamming, and performing together in the nurturing space we have created for youth in Jack London Square. But until then, we are keeping the creative musical torch lit! Thank you for considering us for a year-end donation.
Sincerely,
Ravi Abcarian
Executive Director