Amistad Caribbean Arts Program
Amistad Caribbean Arts Program is our premier music education program for youth (grades K-12) most of whom are black & brown students who have never been fully exposed to their rich cultural heritage. For the past four years, we have helped connect these students with their heritage through the study of music, art, culture and history of the African diaspora.
Through partnerships with local, national and international educators and institutions, we connect our local students with other youth and artists from around the U.S., Ghana, Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico, Brazil and Columbia. Experiencing the program helps give our students a stronger sense of identity which in turn builds self-esteem, improves work ethic, and increases respect for their community and others.
Over this period, the OTM and Amistad teams have worked with Cultural Resources LLC, developers of the Culture Atlas app, who has created three digital archives for the Amistad program:
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Amistad curriculum — an online exploration of Afro-Atlantic culture;
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Amistad Video Library — a collection of 180+ short (1 to 5 minutes) videos on Afro-Atlantic and world cultures;
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Amistad Percussion Library — a collection of videos exploring rhythms of the African diaspora.
Open Tone Music has an exclusive agreement with Cultural Resources LLC that enables us to provide their app at no cost to select schools in NE Ohio. While the current iteration of their app is restricted to newer iPads, an app upgrade later in 2022 will be available for all laptops.
