Instrument drive transforms Denver school's music program and sparks student passion
A Colorado nonprofit's instrument drive delivered more than 50 refurbished instruments to a small Denver arts school last fall, reinvigorating a music program that had struggled for years with aging equipment, dwindling interest and tight budgets — and giving students the tools to discover their own sound.
Kunsmiller Creative Arts Academy, a Title I school in Denver, received the instruments through Bringing Music to Life, a Colorado nonprofit that has distributed over 9,500 instruments to more than 360 schools statewide since its founding in 2009, impacting an estimated 25,000 young musicians.
The arts integration school received 25 acoustic guitars, 2 electric guitars, 2 bass guitars, 15 ukuleles and 10 keyboards. Rachel Davis, the school's music director, said the delivery was unlike anything she had seen in four years at the school. "It was a mountain. It was a mountain of instruments. It was so overwhelming," Davis said. "It was like Christmas morning in September. They're opening the cases like, ‘Whoa,' and having them feel it and hold it."
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