Recently inducted Abreu Fellow, Aisha Bowden, picks the Atlanta Music Project as her El Sistema inspired post-grad assignment aiding in transforming the lives of Atlanta’s inner-city youth.

Aisha Bowden

Aisha Bowden, a recent inductee of the 2011-2012 prestigious Abreu Fellows Program at New England Conservatory, has signed with the Atlanta Music Project, an Atlanta-based organization focused on changing the lives of poor Atlanta youth through classical music instruction. Passionate about music and social change, Bowden will spend the school year in the Abreu Fellows Program where she will study non-profit management, community partnerships and travel to Venezuela where she will observe and participate in “El Sistema”, Venezuela‘s 35-year-old National System of Children and Youth Orchestras. In the summer of 2012, following the Abreu Fellows Program, Bowden will bring her skills as a Choral Teaching Artist to a new leadership role with the Atlanta Music Project.

“I am grateful that Ms. Bowden has chosen to return to the Atlanta Music Project following her year in the Abreu Fellows Program,” says Dantes Rameau, Co-Founder/Executive Director of the Atlanta Music Project and a 2010 graduate of the Abreu Fellows Program. “The results she garnered this past school year as our Choral Teaching Artist have been simply outstanding and a testament to her abilities as an artist and educator. As a graduate of the Abreu Fellows Program myself, I am positive that Ms. Bowden’s experiences at New England Conservatory and in Venezuela will be an asset for both her and the Atlanta Music Project as she rejoins our music for social change program in an expanded role in the fall of 2012.”

Bowden, recognized for her excellence in arts education by the Arts for Every Student Program and The D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Mayor’s Arts Awards, has more than a decade of choral experience stemming from performance exhibitions in Switzerland, Germany and Gabon, Africa as well as domestically in Georgia and Washington DC.

Bowden has spent the last two years as a Choir Director in the Cobb County School District and currently serves as the Atlanta Music Project’s Choral Teaching Artist.