We’re just completed the fourth year of our Guitar In Our Schools program, and have many successes to share. Ryan Picone and Ben Abrahamson, our GIOS team teachers at Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis and Harding High School in St. Paul, respectively, report solid progress in developing goals and activities for the students in their classes, including recording original music and planning in-school performances for their peers.

Performers from our International Concert Artists series at Sundin Music Hall made visits to our partnering schools. In February the Salzburg Guitar Trio visited the first-year guitar class at Harding High School. Raphaël Feuillâtre visited Roosevelt High School in March. In April, Jérémy Jouve visited Southwest High School in Minneapolis, where Jared Waln, an original member of our GIOS team of teaching artists, has taken over the guitar program. We have begun discussions with the band/choir director at Battlecreek Middle School (St. Paul) about how we can partner there starting next fall. Other contacts are on the horizon.

The grant we received at the end of 2022 from the Augustine Foundation guarantees we can make commitments for the fall 2023 semester. Other fundraising plans will be made to ensure that we can continue into 2024, and expand GIOS to more schools and other parts of the metro.

This spring a new fund has been created to benefit the Guitar in Our Schools program by Jan Fillmore, in honor of her late husband, Jay. Jay and Jan played classical guitar as a duo and were active members of the MGS for many years.