Arizona World Music Initiative: Home
Welcome to the Arizona World Music Initiative, a non-profit educational music organization located in Phoenix, AZ! We are lighting a spark through world music in grades K-5!
Please help us in raising money to bring our wonderful and educational program into local schools by purchasing an Entertainment Book.
PURCHASE AND ENTERTAINMENT BOOK AND HELP AZWMI NOW!!
Our goal at AZWMI is to inspire, educate and entertain children, seniors, and people with special needs in the genre of world music. We create music awareness in world music, build self-esteem, and unleash musical potential in particpants. We are a 501c3 non-profit organization. Please contact us if you would like to receive a brochure or more information! Our basic program is broken down in 5 sessions: First session: Performance given by AZWMI musicians. Introduction to the instruments and their sounds. Second Session: Teaching rhythms, simple to complex depending on the abilities of the students, using AZWMI provided instruments. We will talk to student about objects and recycled items that they can bring in from home to make instruments. Third Session: Making instruments from recycled materials. Fourth Session: Using made instruments and learned rhythms and playing with AZWMI musicians. Fifth Session: A final performance with the students performing alongside AZWMI musicians for their school, parents, etc. The program can be shortened or extended into more session depending on the needs and desires of the teachers and schools. Sample video: Please take a look at our News Page for what is coming up and to also view our Wish List of items needed for our organization!! “Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them — a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement. The future of our nation depends on providing our children with a complete education that includes music.” ~ Gerald Ford Benefits of Arts Education: It is important that students not only become observers of the arts, but become active participants in the arts, and the arts be valued for their own intrinsic value. A growing number of studies and research pieces have demonstrated compelling evidence connecting student learning in the arts to academic and social benefits. By making and learning through the arts, students are able to think creatively and become problem solvers. The arts create a foundation for an innovative workforce and inform us, not only of our own history and culture, but of others’ as well. Participants involved in band or orchestra are more than twice as likely to perform at the highest levels in math as their piers who are not involved in music. Musical training in rhythm emphasizes proportion, patterns and ratios expressed as mathematical relations. “Learning in individual art forms, as well as in multi-arts experiences, engages and strengthens such fundamental cognitive capacities as spatial reasoning (the capacity for organizing and sequencing ideas); conditional reasoning (theorizing about outcomes and consequences); problem solving; and the components of creative thinking (originality, elaboration, flexibility).” —Critical Links: Learning in the Arts and Student Academic and Social Development, Arts Education Partnership 2002 Arts education must be supported as a vital part of a basic preK-12 education in the schools, as the arts make a significant contribution to helping all students achieve success in school, work, and life. • The arts prepare students for jobs. • Understanding of one’s self and others expands with arts education. • High risk students are helped through the arts. • Creativity is naturally developed through the arts. Children participating in the arts in their classroom benefit from enhanced: 1. Reading and Language Skills 2. Mathematics Skills 3. Thinking Skills 4. Social Skills 5. Motivation to Learn 6. Positive School Environment Originality and imagination scores were significantly higher for preschool children with disabilities after participation in a dance program than for those participating in the adapted physical education program. —Effect of a Dance Program on the Creativity of Preschool Handicapped Children, by Danielle Jay, 1991. The arts are an integral ingredient in establishing and maintaining healthy communities. People who participate in the arts are more inclined to participate in other forms of public engagement, and public engagement fosters civic health and community pride. It is a fact that people who attend arts and cultural events are more likely to give of their free time as volunteers, donate money to charities, and vote in higher numbers. Watch the link below to learn how music helps children become better in their schoolwork! Many thanks to Jay Howey, Jessica Montemayor, Jehan Khateeb, Sonja Saldivar, Jennifer Pollard and Chris Meisner from the Phoenix Arts Institue for all of their hard work and creativity in creating marketing materials and this website for AZWMI!! Please contact Sherry Finzer (sfinzer@cox.net) for more information, or if you would like to make a monetary donation to the organization, or a donation of percussive instruments, or become part of our organization.