Founder of Music Empowers Foundation, Andy Davis, Honored at New York Women's Agenda Star Breakfast on December 7, 2010

On December 7, Music Empowers Foundation Founder, Andy Davis was announced as the recipient of the New York Women’s Agenda’s (NYWA) 2010 Honorable MEN-Tion Award for his philanthropic contributions to music education for children. Past recipients of the Award include: Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Ronald Perelman, Sanford Weill and James McBride (Author of “The Color of Water”).

The Award was announced at the Annual NYWA STAR Breakfast held at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square. At the breakfast, Mr. Davis (seen here with event host Roz Abrams) addressed the crowd of over 1,000 speaking about the goals of the Music Empowers Foundation and the ever-increasing need for private funding for music education in light of government budget cuts. Andy’s full speech is feature below. Other honorees included Linda Fairstein, the former chief sex crimes prosecutor with the New York D.A.’s Office and now a best-selling crime novelist. For coverage of the event, click here.

Andy Davis, NYWA Star Breakfast Speech:

I would like to express my gratitude to the New York Women’s Agenda for honoring me as this year’s Honorable “Men”schen. I am humbled by this recognition especially in light of the accomplishments of Today’s other honorees. I cannot express how meaningful this is to a young organization like Music Empowers. So, Music Empowers Foundation; unless you are engaged in the not for profit music education world you’ve probably not heard of us. Essentially we provide funding to other nonprofits that provide innovative and engaging music education programs to youth in communities where such programs are limited or nonexistent. Okay, but what are we really about?

My late wife Carol, in whose honor Music Empowers was founded, and I shared a great love and respect for music and education. More importantly we understood that knowledge of music and experiencing it first hand has the power to do more than entertain. It can spark creativity and foster a sense of accomplishment in almost every child. And having that sense of accomplishment empowers children to achieve and succeed in almost every aspect of their lives. So Music Empowers is about trying to change kids lives.

The statistics back this and you can go to our website or Facebook page and see the empirical evidence…higher test scores, less drug use, more teamwork, better grades, less gang involvement and on and on. Recently, Music Empowers agreed to fund a major longitudinal study being conducted by Tufts University of middle and high school students participating in Berklee College of Music’s City Music Network Program. Tufts feels that the results will be groundbreaking, but in many ways I can already tell you what it is going to show as I’ve seen it first hand.

If you want to see what music education can really do, then come with me when I visit some of the schools where Music Empowers helps to support the re establishment of music education programs. These schools tend to be in some of the toughest neighborhoods you’ll ever see. I visited some of these schools just last month. It both broke my heart and gave me great encouragement.

One school I visited had seen a parent murdered on the school steps, another an infant shot to death while sitting in a car outside the school. 95% of these kids qualify for free breakfast and lunch, 90% come from a single adult home. More than a few kindergarteners have a starting vocabulary that is a shocking 10% of the national average (350 versus 3500). Still there is incredible optimism and music education is often at the core of that. Even in some of the worst schools you’ll see kids now receiving music education for 30 minutes a day, every day of the week.

You can’t imagine what it feels like to get buzzed through the reinforced doors, walk past the armed school guards and then enter a classroom with 20 or so 3rd and 4th graders….violins held perfectly, bows ready and every face intent and engaged. If that doesn’t make you want to keep going, nothing will. That is seeing the power of music education in action and this is what Music Empowers is about.

Per the Agenda’s mission and this year’s theme, Music Empowers is but one voice. Yet by working with amazing organizations like Berklee College of Music, Little Kids Rock and the Quincy Jones Music Consortium, and with help of amazing celebrity partners like American Idol winner , Kris Allen who has become an awesome advocate for kids music education, we were able to help maintain or restore music education for an estimated 100,000 children. Hopefully that is just a start.

Thank you again for this honor, it definitely helps to shine a spotlight on the cause. I wish everyone a joyous holiday season. As you listen to those holiday tunes, remember that music not only can entertain, but also empower.