PRESS RELEASE
- WHAT: The Ti Festival Guild’s We Are Instrumental program will host a summer-long musical instrument drive to benefit elementary school students in the North Country, The drive will accept gently used band and string instruments.
- WHEN: Memorial Day Weekend to Labor Day Weekend. Big push to get instruments 5/28-6/1 and 8/27 to 29.
- WHERE: Drop-offs will take place at Silver Bay YMCA, Clinton • Essex • Franklin library branches: in Rouses Point, Mooers, Malone, Dannemora, St. Regis Falls, Keesville, Willsboro, Upper Jay, Essex, and Ticonderoga, and the First United Methodist Church in Ticonderoga
BACKGROUND
When Evan Mack’s son came home from band practice and told him most of his classmates were playing on instruments that were bruised, battered, and bonded together with duct tape, the senior teaching professor of music at Skidmore College was stunned. He also learned that many students could not afford to rent musical instruments. We Are Instrumental was born. Mack held an instrument drive at Skidmore College in early 2020 and collected 70 instruments, now fully restored and in the hands of school-age children. Ticonderoga band director, Michael Iturrino said of We Are Instrumental, “They’ve had a jaw-reaction to the initiative…it was a very generous offer and we are so fortunate for that.”
Realizing the problem effects the entire North Country, Mack teamed up with the Ti Festival Guild to assess the needs of each school district, amass instruments, and advance band directors’ instrument-repair skills to get certified in training. “Learning to play on a quality, working instrument is so important. When you give children a functional instrument, what you’re really giving them is the opportunity to explore what they’re capable of and to fall in love with music,” says Mack.
