$25,000 Grant Will Boost Orchestra and Choir Program for Atlanta’s At-Risk Youths

ATLANTA, GA(Marketwire – November 1, 2010) – This week AOL announced the winners of “25 for 25” a new grant program that will award 25 $25,000 grants to “tomorrow’s groundbreakers and visionaries — individuals with a creative spark to ignite.”

Among the winners is Atlanta’s own Dantes Rameau who was chosen from a field of over 9,000 artists, and creative professionals throughout the world. Dantes, a bassoonist and Executive Director of Atlanta Music Project, will use his prize money to further develop the Atlanta Music Project, a non-profit after-school youth orchestra and choir program serving low-income communities in Atlanta. He is one of the youngest grant recipients and the first recipient from Georgia.

“It’s fantastic that AOL has created a grant program to recognize and reward artists and innovators,” said Dantes Rameau. “I’m humbled and grateful to have been chosen and I hope the grant will shine a light on the Atlanta Music Project and our students, who are developing life skills through the pursuit of musical excellence.”

A distinguished Advisory Board was assembled to review applicants, including Adam D. Weinberg, Director, Whitney Museum of American Art; Chrissie Iles, Curator, Whitney Museum of American Art; Andy Spade, Partners & Spade; Rafael de Cardenas, Architecture at Large; Kim Hastreiter, Paper Magazine; Christian Viveros Faune, Village Voice; Jen Bekman, 20×200; and Glenn O’Brien, Writer.

“We are thrilled to honor and provide a platform for these very worthy 25 individuals who have inspired us,” said AOL Senior Vice President of Brand & Marketing, Maureen Sullivan. “25 for 25 is an affirmation of our commitment to the creative community.”

In addition to the grant money, winners will also be featured on www.AOLArtists.com, which will highlight grant recipients, and also include exclusive content and background from the winners, tracking the progress of their creative endeavors.

The Atlanta Music Project launched in early October 2010. The organization’s young musicians are currently immersed in a life changing, after school, five-day-a-week youth orchestra and choir program. They can be seen and heard at Atlanta’s historic Gilbert House.

About Dantes Rameau

Born in Ottawa, Canada to Cameroonian and Haitian parents, bassoonist Dantes Rameau is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Atlanta Music Project. Following performance studies in bassoon at McGill University, Yale University and Carnegie Mellon University, Rameau was an inaugural member of the Abreu Fellows Program at the New England Conservatory of Music where he studied El Sistema, the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra System. Modeled on El Sistema, the Atlanta Music Project is a 5-day-a-week, after-school, youth orchestra program targeting Atlanta’s underserved communities.

About The Atlanta Music Project

The Atlanta Music Project’s mission is to use music as a catalyst for social change. The organization transforms the lives of Atlanta’s underprivileged children through an intense 5-day-a-week after-school program of classical, orchestral training. Through the practice and performance of ensemble music the program instills confidence, creativity and ambition in its at-risk youth participants while at the same time keeping them out of harm’s way. To learn more about The Atlanta Music Project, please visit www.atlantamusicproject.org or www.facebook.com/atlantamusicproject. You can also email us at info@atlantamusicproject.org.

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