LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — The Central Music Academy was approved for a $10,000 grant to support their "Music in the West End" initiative.
The grant will support the project which will allow twenty economically disadvantaged students who come from Lexington's West End to enroll in CMA's programs. The students will be provided with private music lessons, group steel band classes and a Bluegrass ensemble. CMA currently gives free musical training to approximately 100 low-income 8-to-18 year old students each week. However, there's also a waiting list of over 80 students.
The grant will help support the "Music in the West End" project which will allow a quarter of the students to be pulled off that wait list, thus enabling thoes 20 students to join other students in receiving free quality musical training from professional teaching artists at CMA.
“We are so grateful to the NEA for funding CMA’s fourth National Endowment for the Arts grant," CMA Executive Director Erin Walker Bliss said.
"With their help, we’ll be able to include more kids from our immediate West End neighborhood in our programs, and thus also whittle down CMA’s waiting list.”
The National Endowment for the Arts has approved 1,187 grants totaling over $27 million in the first round of fiscal year 2020 to support art projects in every state of the nation.
“The arts are at the heart of our communities, connecting people through shared experiences and artistic expression,” Arts Endowment chairman Mary Anne Carter said.
“The National Endowment for the Arts is proud to support organizations like the Central Music Academy.”
