Our Mission, History + Activities
Living Arts Collaborative (LAC) provides interactive musical arts residencies, workshops, and concerts by professional musicians in public and private educational, community, cultural, and performance facilities in the state of New York.
Through these educational experiences, LAC aims to bring essential high-quality music education programs to historically marginalized pre-K-12 students and other under-resourced populations throughout the tri-state and upstate NY region.
LAC came to fruition following the dissolution of Bridge Arts Ensemble ("BAE"), an arts education organization that provided in-school music residencies from 2015 to 2020 to over 50 school districts in 13 counties in upstate NY, serving 75,000 PreK-12 students annually.
After managing and leading the BAE residency program, African American and Latino opera singer and teaching artist Steven Herring (Executive Director) pivoted in 2020 to found and create LAC with Artistic Director Justin Jay Hines. In the past year, LAC engaged more than 6,700 students and their families in both rural school districts in upstate New York and under-resourced schools in New York City, where a majority of the students served are from disadvantaged communities. Plans for expansion are in the works to extend its reach to 10+ schools/districts and over 10,000 students and families in FY25.
LAC’s programs are built to align with the special interests and needs of each community that it serves, with a focus on developing and offering an array of unique music education programs for under-resourced young people. LAC’s multi-day residencies feature in-school concerts for students in grades PreK-12, workshops in classrooms, and a public evening concert that engages students and teachers. Since the company's recent founding, LAC's arts education partners have included NY schools serving students in Manhattan and the Bronx; Herkimer and Lewis Counties in upstate NY; and Essex, NJ.
— Grant Applications —
Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation
Rose M. Badgeley Charitable Trust
NYC Discretionary Funding (City Council Funding)
National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Arts Projects 1 Grant (Rescinded)
Walmart Spark Local Grant
New York State Council on the Arts
New York State Council on the Arts/New York Foundation for the Arts Community Arts Leaders Program
— LAC Residencies —
LAC’s residencies are customized to each school partner and community it serves, to address culturally relevant themes that will expand students’ creativity, empathy, and build cultural understanding and connections. They meet New York State learning standards of Create/Perform/Connect for three grade groups: PreK-2, 3-5, and 6-12. LAC’s in-class workshops are designed with the best practices of aesthetic education and multiple intelligence pedagogies and cover a wide range of topics such as: Science of Sound, Movement, Performance Anxiety, Bucket Drumming, Song Writing, and Folktales. Additionally, high school students receive personalized music instruction and coaching on their instruments. LAC builds its educational rubrics upon decades of foundational work by the experts of its esteemed team of teaching artists and by organizations like Lincoln Center Education.
Each music education residency is led by one of LAC’s experienced teaching artists, forming a group of 6 professional musicians and teaching artists—comprising two singers and four instrumentalists—including distinguished graduates of The Juilliard School, Manhattan School of Music, and Yale School of Music. The musicians represent the ethnic and musical diversity of the communities served.
Through its interactive workshops and concerts, LAC aims to make the musical arts accessible and relevant to PreK-12 students, fostering in them an appreciation of the musical arts in their lives and unleashing creativity, imagination, and innovation in all areas of their lives.
