June 2025 update!

Twenty years ago, our director and founder, Lynnelle Ediger, visited a Boys and Girls Club and conceived the idea for Sound Experiences, a tuition-free music education program designed for students who may have limited access to private lessons or instruments due to financial constraints. Here we are — 20 years later — and the program is still going strong! Thousands of students have had the opportunity to develop their musical talents through Sound Experiences.

We are deeply grateful for the incredible faculty and student mentors who are dedicated to the success of this program, as well as the Boys and Girls Clubs for our long-standing partnership. Sound Experiences is just one of GreenSpring's outreach programs, but it exemplifies how each of us can address a community need and inspire others to join the cause! Through immersive programming, GreenSpring's Sound Experiences program directly addresses poverty barriers for Richmond youth by providing otherwise unattainable arts opportunities and life-changing experiences.

GreenSpring's Sound Experiences program wrapped up this academic year, and what a wonderful year it has been! We served multiple Boys and Girls Clubs with multi-day-a-week, tuition-free music instruction. Students learned to play harp, drums, guitar, piano, and saxophone, as well as music theory and songwriting. They also had opportunities to showcase their talents at regular performances. We are so proud of these young musicians and all they have accomplished this year!

Founded in 2004, the program has grown to serve more than 800 underserved youth annually in some of Metro Richmond's most impoverished areas with tuition-free, multi-day, year-round music instruction in partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs, Richmond Public Schools and Charles City County Public Schools.

Sound Experiences is a social justice outreach program similar in philosophy to Venezuela's El Sistema, a visionary global movement that transforms the lives of children through music and represents a new model for social change.

Sound Experiences is not only about musical instruction but is also about mentorship and community service. Through interactions with proficient and mature GreenSpring American Youth Harp Ensemble members, students establish meaningful relationships with peer role models. For the youth served, the program provides a stable, long term influence teaching discipline, fostering self expression, nurturing creativity, and instilling the value of hard work; tools to help them thrive and succeed in higher education and throughout life.