Rebecca Bolden started working as Project 440’s first full-time Executive Director in January, and she has been busy learning the ins and outs of the organization. She recently answered a few questions so that we could get to know her. Read about Rebecca’s connection to music, what excites her the most about working for Project 440, and some advice on college and career planning she would give to her high school self in this blog post.
Q: What excites you most about being Project 440’s first full-time executive director?
What excites me about leading Project 440 is the passion that everyone involved, from our students and partners to our donors, have for our mission and the collective commitment to providing young people with opportunities to forge new pathways for themselves and ignite change in their communities. After presenting our programs virtually for the past two years, we are planning a return to in-person classes in the fall. I am excited to collaborate with our Board of Directors, staff and Teaching Artists, and partner with Joseph Conyers, our Founder & Vision Advisor, to engage more students in our work.
Over the past two years, we have developed partnerships with the Bucks County Youth Orchestra, the Boston University Tanglewood Institute, and the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, to name a few. These partnerships have underscored the power of our mission, the reach of our creative youth development programs, and the importance of teaching 21st century life skills to our next generation of leaders. We know that participating in our programs including Instruments for Success and Doing Good can change a young person’s life. Project 440 is committed to welcoming students who have varied interests in music and represent all genres and skill levels. I am most excited to ensure that more students know Project 440 is a place for them and to make our programs accessible to all Philadelphia high school students.
Q: What is your personal connection to music and/or the creative arts?
Music has always been an important part of my life. My parents introduced me to music, and I was fortunate to be able to attend live performances beginning at a very young age. A few of my earliest and fondest memories of attending live performances include a production of South Pacific at the Myrtle Beach Hilton and The Philadelphia Orchestra’s family concerts at the Academy of Music and summer concerts at the Mann Center for the Performing Arts. I sang in choir throughout my education beginning in elementary school and studied voice in college and after college. As a child, I also studied piano with a neighbor who was a wonderful and very patient teacher!
I live in South Philadelphia and love that I am within walking distance and can easily attend live music and theater performances. I am happy to be able to attend live performances again, and most recently attended The Philadelphia Orchestra’s performance of The Hours and the All-City Philadelphia High School Music Festival featuring many Project 440 students past and present.
Q: If you could give any advice to your high school self with regards to college applications and/or career choices, what would it be?
Hmm… that’s a great question. I definitely had anxiety about applying to and being accepted to college. My brother gave me some good advice. He said that while academics and what I study are of course a significant aspect of college, it is not the only important factor in deciding where to go to college. That advice helped me to broaden my thinking about what I wanted out of my college experience. I loved music and hoped to study voice, and although I was not on a path to attend a conservatory, it was important for me to be able to participate in music in college.
I grew up in the Philadelphia area and was fortunate to be able to go away to college and attend Clark University in Worcester Massachusetts. Clark is a small university, and I was able to study voice and also pursue a liberal arts education—two of my favorite non-music classes were comparative politics and a video production course. I was originally hoping to attend college in Boston, but after visiting Clark, I decided it was the right place for me, and Boston was less than an hour away. Good thing I visited in the warmer weather. I may not have gone there if I visited during a typical wintery Worcester day.
I would reiterate Cigus’s advice to do a thorough self-appraisal of what is important to you, and I would invite all of our Project 440 students to attend the College Fair on June 4!