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Mission

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New ideas must be tried out, not within the safety net of academia's protecting walls, but out in the real world, under actual conditions. This is exactly what the Kithara Project Proposes to do.

-Eliot Fisk, Chair of Guitar Department at New England Conservatory

Kithara Project is a collective of internationally acclaimed classical guitarists with the mission of enriching the lives of young people worldwide through the classical guitar. The guitar is unique in its ability to appeal to people of all ages, cultures and backgrounds. Kithara Project currently maintains three ongoing, community-based guitar education programs: one in a community center serving a low-income housing development near Boston, another in an self-governing community in southeast Mexico City, and another in an elementary school in Albuquerque's South Valley. 

In each of these sites, Kithara Project develops and implements classical guitar programs designed at once to encourage civic and community mindedness and give students all the benefits of a first-class music education. Specifically, the programming includes weekly group workshops, private lessons, chamber music coaching, theory classes, and vocal training. 
 

What Problem Is Kithara Project Solving?

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Kithara Project works to address the chronic shortage of music education in the US and Mexico. As musicians as well as conscientious citizens, we regard this shortage — which seems to grow worse with each passing year — as nothing less than an emergency that requires all hands on deck. The political and social contexts in the US differ from those in Mexico, of course, but many of the basic facts as experienced by individuals are the same: only a small — and shrinking — portion of children have consistent access to music education. The rest do not. 
 
Second, norms of citizenship in the US — and elsewhere — seem to be  disintegrating by the day. If citizenship begins in the community, then Kithara Project’s programming strikes at the heart of the matter. Beyond the oft-heard mantra that music makes children smarter, more empathic, more disciplined, more team-oriented (it does), it can also, when implemented intelligently, ripple throughout entire communities, reinforcing their dearest values. 
 
And, finally — recently there has been a distressing breakdown in US - Mexican relations. Again, Kithara Project by no means purports to “solve” this problem, but, by facilitating musical exchange among its students, it does vigorously resist it.