You can find everything you need to build your own "Klezboard" in Grandma's attic or at your local hardware store. Join artists from the Best Little Klezmer Band in Texas as they show you how to build this unique instrument, explain its history and use, and teach you how to play it. Who knows, you might even get a chance to sit in with the band!

Hope Cowan is an experienced arts integration teaching artist, and enjoys creating custom lessons for reading, math, science, and SEL. She loves finding creative ways to use the harp and music to bring curriculum topics to life, and help students draw cross-curricular connections. Past arts integration lessons have focused on: storytelling, learning about the solar system, weather, ancient Greece and Rome, plants and animals, and SEL topic. The possibilities for arts integration are endless, and can be custom tailored to fit your classroom. For custom arts integration workshops and residences, please contact to start the collaboration process!

Join harpist Hope Cowan as we explore how changing variables in our “musical experiment” can change the emotion and character of a familiar piece. Students will explore identifying emotions, articulating their feelings, and elements of music in this interactive workshop where they get to drive the musical and emotional experience. Students will analyze the effect of musical changes on the emotional impact of music, and reflect on their own emotions and how to manage them.

Schedule a Houston Brass Quintet member to teach sectionals, help students with a beginner brass class, or work with your brass sections on UIL/All-State music.

Let HBQ members share how we started the Houston Brass Quintet, what makes a 501c3 (non-profit), and how we run a business! We hope to motivate students to create businesses that do not exist and prepare for tomorrow’s world today.

Virtual option available

Have you ever wondered how brass Instruments work, or why each has a characteristic sound? The Houston Brass Quintet will unravel the mystery of brass instruments in this informative and entertaining presentation through musical examples of brass quintet repertoire, individual instrument demonstrations, and examples of how each instrument works and sounds represented by its corresponding length of garden hose. This is a great STEAM activity!  Classroom extension: HBQ will lead your class in making their own instruments! Straw oboe? Garden hose trumpets? You’ll have a whole makeshift band before you know it!

Celebrate the musical stylings and traditions of Latin and Brazilian percussion with celebrated artist Jorge Orta. As part of a workshop or longer-term residency, students will learn the origins, history, and rhythms inherent in samba, salsa, and more through collaborative music-making and shared performance. Our drummers will leave having a better understanding of world culture, the influence of music across various Latin countries, and have the opportunity to showcase their new talents in a shared performance setting, for each other and for their community.

During this workshop or residency, participants will explore sound. What is sound and how do we perceive sound? Participants will learn how to create sound instruments or sound sculptures and create their own sound experiences. Recycled materials are used for this project.  

Our voices matter and the pen is one of our greatest tools. Students will explore the value and power of their unique voice through their engagement in written art forms like songwriting, poetry, and storytelling. This artistic workshop and residency focuses on Social and Emotional (SE) Learning and Development, reduction of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), and youth literacy. These sessions are a great opportunity for students to find, refine, and strengthen their self-advocacy, mediation, and communication skills.

This is a one-week residency for middle or high school culminating with an open to the public concert with Marlon Simon Latin jazz trio and the students.

Day One:  Introduction to the origins, sounds, and development of the tumbadora, better known as the conga drums.  Open, slap, muff, and toe sounds and it’s combinations in different sequences to create rhythms. Students will participate on hand on the conga drum exercises and combination of sounds. Introduction to the Cuban cha cha cha rhythm on the conga drum, cowbell, shaker, and tambourine parts are explained through music notation. 

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*Subsidies available, call for details 

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Do Re Mi Sing Globally! is a program that integrates music education and multilingual education by teaching the fundamentals of music side by side the basics of languages from around the world.

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Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. The five broad, interrelated areas of competence are: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. 

These music workshops with PK-5th grade students focus on hands-on music making and teamwork. All students will have a chance to make music and express emotion in small groups of 25 or less.

Come and discover the art of healing through sound..The main objective of this experience is to increase vibrations and resonate with your healthy life state. Cindy sets the scene with vibrating rhythmic sounds using bowls, mantras and shamanic instruments. This process improves concentration, facilitates mindfulness and connects with our emotions. It also encourages others to connect with their feelings and brings a sensation of tranquility.