Over 8 Saturdays, Small Art Music Projects will engage composer/performer and educator Matt Small, with additional artists, to welcome and mentor kids in making ruckus, inventive, magical music on instruments from around the world. Open houses are a free-flowing format in which families are welcomed, free of charge, to play on any of over 50 instruments. In these open houses, bridges are built between cultures, inspiration is drawn from new experiences, and friends are made out of strangers.
Small Art Music Projects (SAMP) began in 2005 as a fiscal sponsor of Intersection for the Arts, and transitioned into being its own 501c3 in 2014. SAMP’s core organizational programs and services have included a vast array of performance/music education projects, all of which were supported by grant funding including major awards from American Composers Forum, The Ford, Zellerbach, Hewlett, and Bank of America Charitable Foundations, and The California Arts Council. SAMP’s core performance activities have been centered in SF and the Bay Area, and its music educational work has focused on serving low-median income families and their children living in SF. Matt Small, the founder and Artistic Director of SAMP, has an extensive artistic history as a professional bassist/composer/educator/bandleader for the past 25 years, having had his music performed all over the world, and having performed with musical luminaries such as Yo-Yo Ma and The Silk Road Ensemble, among many others.

