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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

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“Music is something I can go to on a day to day basis and really connect to what I’m listening to” said OJW Alumna Shailla Head as she reflected on her relationship with music after making a surprise return visit to OJW. “I’ll hear a phrase of what someone says and if that phrase is in a certain song I will bust out and sing the whole song. That’s how in love I am with music.”

Shailla didn’t speak very much as a young child but at the age of three she began singing alongside her grandmother in church. By the time she was six years old she was regularly singing before her pastor’s sermons, often times visiting as many as three different churches a week.

At one of her featured performances for an MLK Day celebration in Oakland, her keyboard accompanist did not show up for the concert, but Shailla was determined to perform her song and began singing a’capella without him. Oaktown Jazz was waiting in the wings to go on next but soon after Shailla started her song OJW’s Founding Director Khalil Shaheed began playing trumpet softly beneath her voice and then motioned to Oaktown Jazz Workshops’ young musicians to join in. Pretty soon all of OJW’s musicians had picked up on the tune and were accompanying Shailla before the packed audience.

After the performance Khalil reached out to her grandmother and invited Shaillah to join OJW’s Youth Performance Ensemble. Once Shailla joined OJW she quickly began adding jazz standards to her repertoire of gospel songs and for the next three years she became the featured vocalist for Oaktown Jazz, performing at community events all over the San Francisco Bay Area.

After 7^th grade Shailla moved with her grandmother to Atlanta, GA. She continued singing in church and at school, but not finding an afterschool musical outlet like OJW, she began to focus more of her energy on playing for her school’s basketball team.

After completing High School Shailla received a full scholarship to Alabama A&M University where she will graduate with a Bachelor of Music in May 2021.

“I don’t know what I would do without music.”

A Fundraiser for Oaktown Jazz Workshops

MeloDious has been captivating audiences since 2016 with a sound that is electric, pure and soulful. Fusing jazz, gospel and R&B, MeloDious is blazing a trail for the music of tomorrow. Micaiah, Matthias and Memphis of Oakland, CA are singers, songwriters, musicians, and artists creating music that is TIMELESS. As a homeschooled family, MeloDious has been privileged to be taught and mentored by some of the best musicians in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the opportunity to participate in Oaktown Jazz Workshops.

This will be a free livestream but we will be grateful for all donations.

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Greetings Oaktown Jazz Workshops supporters, We hope you and your loved ones are staying safe and healthy during these strange pandemic times. Our young musicians miss playing for you at community events and we look forward to performing live music for you again soon. In the meantime, we are engaging with our students and their families to develop online assignments and virtual classes. These musical offerings will ensure young musicians continue to develop their craft at home as well as enhance our curriculum for future presentations and workshops. Already, some exciting opportunities have arisen. Our Youth Mentor, Ashanti Johnson will be providing short musical clips for The Oakland International Airport to share on their social media platforms to keep staff and travelers encouraged during these hard times. And in late April, Oaktown Jazz Workshops’ young musicians were invited to join a Zoom conference call/clinic with saxophone great, Sonny Rollins, thanks to our connection to The New School through OJW Alumna Lily Stern and OJW saxophone instructor Richard Howell. It is thanks to your support that we are able to be flexible and adapt to these times and we are grateful for these opportunities to still teach and learn. Sincerely, Ravi Abcarian Executive Director

Dear Friend of Oaktown Jazz Workshops,

It is thanks to you that we close out our 25^th year as a thriving community based, non-profit organization for young musicians. At Oaktown Jazz, each young musician develops important skills that come with learning a musical instrument and playing in an ensemble. The self-discipline a child develops to practice, the ability to collaborate with others gained during rehearsals, and the courage strengthened by performing before a live audience are valuable tools that young people can apply for a lifetime.

With support from individuals like you, we are able to create a vibrant community for young musicians and their families. Our afterschool classes and workshops allow young people to learn to perform together, as a group, from professional musicians dedicated to helping youth develop their talents. Our Jazz Encounters program has brought in internationally touring musicians and multi-platinum and Grammy Award winning artists to speak and perform with our excited young musicians.

This past year, Oaktown Jazz Workshops’ youth ensembles performed at dozens of community events, our faculty led 70 presentations and sectionals at public schools, and we have been proud to produce monthly family-friendly concerts at our venue in Jack London Square.

To provide this uniquely dynamic musical education and experience to San Francisco Bay Area youth, we partner with local civic and arts organizations, and rely on support from dedicated community members like you. All contributions made to Oaktown Jazz Workshops go directly to performance education for young people who value it.

Our Founding Director, Khalil Shaheed, created Oaktown Jazz Workshops in 1994 with the mission of passing on the tradition of jazz music to youth in an authentic, supportive environment. Seven years ago we launched the Khalil Shaheed Scholarship Fund to cover the cost of our workshops for young musicians whose families could not otherwise afford tuition. This fund has been absolutely critical in supporting local young people seeking opportunities for creative expression and artistic development.

At this time, your contribution to this fund, in whatever amount you can manage, will encourage our children’s creativity, elevate music education and appreciation, and enrich our community. Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Ravi Abcarian
Executive Director