At The People’s Music School, we know a thing or two about realizing big dreams.

In 1976, our founder Dr. Rita Simó dreamed of a world where there were no barriers to access to excellent music instruction. What started as free music lessons in a repurposed hair salon in Uptown has grown into the 750-student, 4-site, 21-instrument, nationally recognized organization we are today. At People’s, we always tell our students – and encourage ourselves – to dream even bigger.

That’s why we’re asking for your support for Big Night, Bigger Dreams, The People’s Music School’s seventh annual Big Night gala. At our biggest night of the year, we will celebrate the power of dreaming audaciously, working hard, and making incredible things happen together. 

This year, we are thrilled to be honoring John W. Rogers, Jr., for his significant impact on our students and our organization. John has made some very big dreams a reality for our students over the years, sponsoring 20 students over the past two summers to attend intensive, transformational summer programs that have expanded their worlds and deepened their knowledge. These 20 Rogers Music Scholars have attended the Gifted Education Research and Resource Institute at Purdue University, the Vancouver Island Music Academy, YOLA National Institute, Birch Creek Music Performance Center, Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, and Berklee’s Aspire: Five Week intensive. Our mission is to provide access to the benefits of high-quality, tuition-free music education, and John has directly enabled exactly that mission for these 20 young people. We look forward to celebrating them and John on February 8th at Morgan MFG.

We hope you will join The People’s Music School in honoring John’s impact and supporting our students’ big dreams. Your support of our Big Night will enable intensive, tuition-free, after-school music programming during the school year for students like the Rogers Music Scholars. In supporting The People’s Music School, you will demonstrate your commitment to a historic, nationally recognized organization on the leading edge of creating life-changing student outcomes through access to intensive music education.

On our Big Night, help us achieve our Bigger Dreams. We’ll see you at Morgan MFG.

Gratefully,