A Bear music studio spreads music and opportunity to underresourced youth

13 years ago, Zachary Humenik and Tyler Holloway took their mutual love of music around the globe by creating The Travel Songs Foundation.

Its projects included “Travel Songs Peru,” an award-winning educational documentary about music and culture in the former Incan capital of Cusco.

“We were hoping to shine a light on how music is a theme that runs through all cultures, and through that, maybe we can break down barriers and stereotypes,” said Humenik, Travel Songs’ executive director and director of digital media at the University of Pennsylvania.

After making the documentary, Travel Songs set out to create an instrument school in Cusco, where young people in different Andean communities would learn how to create traditional hybrid Indian-Spanish instruments over a one-year intensive program.

“It was wildly successful,” Humenik said. “One of the participants in the program still sends me pictures of him and his band playing different festivals in and around the Andean region. [It was a] really, really fun and beautiful project and, of course, we also made a documentary out of that, which is now part of the curriculum in some UPenn classes. And that’s called ‘Charango Man,’”

Then, a familiar twist in the road: The pandemic hit, and everything changed.

The 2020 pivot

“Since COVID, we’ve shifted our focus locally to try to fulfill our mission here at home,” said Holloway, who also works as an independent consultant in law, nonprofits and the arts. “I grew up down in Bear, so that was kind of a natural connection for me. And then Zach did some AmeriCorps work down there as well, so it’s a natural connection to him.”

The resulting local project, called the Sparrow Run Community Music Studio, is similar to the Cusco school in its offering free classes to youth living in the Sparrow Run community. In these classes, they can learn to make and produce music, as well as develop podcasting and video production skills.

At first, Humenik and Holloway planned to bootstrap the project, given their prior experience as working musicians building a similar program and equipment they could use.

Then, in late 2020, the Delaware children’s advocacy nonprofit Child Inc. reached out to see if they were interested in a collaboration.

“It was really serendipitous,” Humenik said.

Music with a cause

After about a year of discussing ideas, they landed on the Community Music Studio, a collaboration between Travel Songs and Child Inc. The latter organization found funding for the project in a residual federal COVID money program called Building Better Communities. The grant included a requirement for a social-emotional learning (SEL) component, so they brought on a third partner: Wilmington-based community education and advocacy group The C.A.U.S.E.

“So the studio will pair with this SEL curriculum that should also help students apply their social and emotional issues that they may be having in their lives and put them into a creative outlet,” Holloway said. “And [it’s a] feeder pattern towards a career — what you’re learning in the studio, how you can then apply it and actually potentially turn this into a way of life.”

Making an impact

The grant allowed them to purchase equipment, as well as hire part-time salaried staffers, Denzel Merritt and Quadir Salahuddin — a 16-year-old from Sparrow Run who had no previous musical background.

“He actually was the first student of the program and learned all this stuff,” Holloway said. “He is going to advocate for it in the community and be the first poster child for what the program can do. It’s fun to see: In the first month he already produced his first song and he played it at the first soft open house. … Going from zero musical knowledge to producing handfuls of beats so far is pretty incredible.”

Sparrow Run Community Music Studio plans to hold an open house for interested community members featuring creations by program participants. If you’re interested in learning more about how to get involved, reach out to The Travel Songs Foundation via its website.