Outreach In Rural Utah!

Our percussion studio went over to Escalante, Tropic, and Panguitch, Utah for an outreach. We visited several elementary schools in those areas where we performed for the students and taught them how to play African drums.

The Outreach program is from the artsFusion organization. They send different types of artists to rural areas to share their expertise. artsFusion is run by Carrie Trenholm, who is the chair for Arts Education at SUU. (She also helps organize the Satellite Salon series.) Carrie asked me to be an Arts Fusion artist two years ago, and I’ve been doing percussion outreaches twice a year since then.

The outreach program has always been a great way to reach out to the community. Some areas in Utah are not familiar with percussion and percussion music so the outreach is a treat for them! I also like to bring my percussion studio along so they can experience what its like to teach and work with groups of students.

It’s always an amazing feeling when we see the elementary students get excited over percussion! They don’t get to see and hear percussion every day and with the outreach program, they get to open their minds to something new.