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A volunteer organization has raised over $10,000 for charity by writing a
book about the band Phish. The Mockingbird Foundation has announced the
first recipients of major grants from sales of The Phish Companion, a
928-page book released last fall by Backbeat Books (formerly Miller Freeman
Books). The grants will benefit three unique and diverse programs in music
education for children.
A grant of $5,000 has been awarded to the Athabascan Music Program of the
Yukon-Koyukuk School District in Alaska. This program seeks to reintroduce
traditional music and instruments to the underserved and disenfranchised
villages of the Yukon and Koyukuk River Valleys. It focuses on instruction
in eleven rural and isolated schools, and combines a travelling professional
fiddler/guitarist with the involvement of village elders. The Mockingbird
Foundation's grant will help purchase instruments for the younger children -
percussion, rhythm, and small-necked Athabascan fiddles and guitars with
which they can actively participate in the program.
A grant of $3,000 has been awarded to the New Mexico Jazz Workshop in
Albuquerque. Part of the Workshop's five-program education series is a
Summer Jazz Camp for children 6-12. The Mockingbird Foundation's grant will
re-instate, for 2001, scholarships for low-income students to participate.
Specifically, the grant will allow fifteen students to attend the Camp at a
discounted tuition rate for two weeks this summer.
A grant of $2,500 has been awarded to Art Sanctuary and the LIFE After
School Program in Philadelphia. Art Sanctuary is an African-American arts
organization housed in the Church of the Advocate. The LIFE program serves
50-80 elementary and middle-school children, to whom Art Sanctuary has
introduced an artist-in-residency project to teach traditional drumming
techniques indigenous to West African cultures. The Mockingbird grant pays
for the instructor, assistants, and drums needed for the six-month program.
The Mockingbird Foundation was incorporated by Phish fans in 1997 and
generates charitable proceeds through Phish fandom. The all-volunteer
organization has no paid staff and donates all of its net proceeds to music
education for children. Additional grants are planned for this summer, from
continued sales of The Phish Companion as well as from the Foundation's
forthcoming double-disc charity cover album Sharing in the Groove. More
information is available on the organization's web site, located at
http://www.mockingbirdfoundation.org
Phish is a rock band based in Burlington, VT, who toured heavily from 1983
through 2000. They are now on a hiatus, of unknown duration, which began
after their show on October 7, 2000, at the Shoreline Amphitheater in
Mountain View, CA. For more information on the band, see
http://www.phish.com or The Phish Companion.
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