Mason Music Foundation shares ‘passion for music’ with youth

Birmingham musicians Will and Sarah Mason started giving private lessons in 2007 and soon built their passion — teaching people, especially school-age children, to play instruments in a nurturing atmosphere — into a thriving business.

They’ve opened five locations, including Hoover and Mountain Brook. But the couple wanted to offer the community something more.

“We've always wanted to offer the same services for families that might not have the means,” Will Mason said.

They formed the nonprofit Mason Music Foundation in 2015, with the mission of empowering underserved children in Birmingham by giving them the chance to play and learn music. 

“We have a passion for music and understand how powerful it can be,” Will Mason said.

And last summer, the foundation — with Jeannette Hightower as executive director and Sarah Mason as programs director — moved into its own facility on Third Avenue South in Avondale.

The foundation’s professional teachers offer 30-minute private lessons in guitar, piano, drum and voice on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, according to Sarah Mason.

Lesson fees are calculated using an income-based sliding scale.

The foundation began by partnering with Cornerstone School in Woodlawn, and it still has a strong Woodlawn connection despite the Avondale move.

“Each week we teach between 25-30 students [and] almost all of the students are from the original group that we started teaching at Cornerstone,” Sarah Mason said.

They also draw students from such neighborhoods as East Lake and Roebuck, she said.

The work is gratifying, according to Sarah Mason.

“I’m always amazed at the relationships that the students and teachers build via lessons,” she said. “I love seeing how the children gain confidence in themselves through music and the bond they form with their teacher.”

“These kids are learning valuable lessons about themselves and how hard work and dedication pays off,” she said. 

Musician Crystal Olds from Pratt City has taught piano at the foundation since summer 2017.

“It’s rewarding,” she said. “It's fun for me to give back to the kids, to see them learn.”

Sydney Porter, age 13, has studied piano for a couple of years, including one year with Olds.

“I like my teacher,” she said.  “Crystal is very encouraging.”

Raqueal Operton, age 12, takes drum lessons at the foundation from Alec Bolton.

“It’s very creative,” she said about the drums, a instrument she said had always wanted to play.

The foundation also encourages people to donate gently used instruments for student use. “People have been very generous,” Sarah Mason said, noting that they’ve received a piano, as well as guitars, keyboards, amplifiers and drums.

The youth the foundation serves seem grateful for the opportunity and take the lessons seriously, according to Will Mason.

“For a lot of our Over-the-Mountain students, music is one of many things they take part in,” Will Mason said.

However, foundation students “really get bought in, and they practice,” he said. “They stick with it.”

For more information, go to masonmusicstudios.com/foundation.