Greetings friends!
NOW IS THE TIME to get in on the ground level of a new global music education project that will open the minds -- and change the lives -- of children everywhere.

The Global Orchestra will be an international network of cultural musicians who will teach interactive music workshops -- in-person when practical, but more often online -- that will energize and inspire young children by introducing them to the world through singing, drumming and FUN. The Global Orchestra will book U.S.-based educators for real world teaching tours, while also actively connecting international artists with livestream opportunities that will give affordable access to kids who rarely have access to culture-bearers -- particularly kids who live in rural areas or in culturally homogeneous suburbs, or who attend under-resourced urban schools. Global Orchestra educators will be able to reach kids in any school, library or educational organization that can find a way to get online.

YOUR GENEROUS DONATION WILL BE INSTRUMENTAL (ha!) IN LAUNCHING THIS POWERFUL PROJECT.
 

The Global Orchestra is a natural next step for All Around This World, a global music and world cultures project for kids and their families that has already taught thousands of participatory music classes to kids on several continents.(Pictured above, All Around This World in India!)

All Around This World founder and lead teacher, Philadelphia (U.S.)-based music educator Jay Sand, developed the 300-song strong All Around This World curriculum over his more than 15 year teaching career. Through the pandemic he and other All Around This World educators taught over a hundred classes, primarily online, to kids in schools in a dozen countries, and collaborated with an expanding network of culture-bearers on fantastic, family-friendly teaching videos. Developing a project to connect these adventurous schools with an accomplished network of teachers just made sense.

THIS CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN NEEDS TO RAISE $47,500 TO LAUNCH AN IMPACTFUL INTERNATIONAL ARTS PROJECT THAT WE'VE DESIGNED TO BECOME SELF-SUFFICIENT.

If we're fortunate enough to reach our goal and raise more, any extra will go to the advance the exact same misison -- we will be able to get there faster, with much less stress, and will be able to reach more kids in the process. Not a single penny will go to waste.

Your donation will fund two parts of this project that are inextricably bound:

1) INFRASTRUCTURE! Not "sexy," but essential. Booking international musicians for workshops worldwide will require the focus of a dedicated Global Orchestra organizer who will find schools that want to book culture-bearers and match the exact right culture-bearer to those schools. Without a paying a proactive professional to make bookings happen...nothing will happen. 

2) THE GLOBAL ORCHESTRA PERFORMING ENSEMBLE. Both "sexy" and essential! The Global Orchestra Performing Ensemble will consist of at least ten exceptional teaching artists who originate from at least ten distinct parts of the world, at least one each contributing music from All Around This World's regionally-based sections of curriculum -- Africa, the Caribbean, East and Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, Latin America, the Pacific Islands, South and Central Asia, the U.S./Canada, West Asia and the Middle East and Western Europe.

The GO ensemble will fuse international genres to play concerts that introduce kids to a wealth of world cultures. The band will stir up excitement in the children's music and educational communities, booking performances nationwide that that will generate income for the project. (For those in-the-know, think "The Silk Road Ensemble for kids.") Your donations will support an initial studio recording that will enable the ensemble to start booking shows. 

(Here are some photos of Jay, long-ago at World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, leading a prototype of the ensemble.)

If you have any questions feel free to contact Jay Sand at  jay@allaroundthisworld..com, 215-913-2679.

(Pictured below: Some of All Around This World's teaching artists -- Papa Kow teaching from Ghana about the talking drum, Marcelo and Mimi from Escuela de Tango de Buenos Aires, a Ukrainian Hopak lesson courtesty of the MIT Ukrainian Folk Dance Ensemble, an introduction to Conjunto by Nicolas, and Esha from South Africa teaching us about Rajasthani Ghoomar.)

ENJOY! (And donate now!)