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“Can you imagine a world without music? It’s a must. It has to be taught.”
— Edward Van Halen
In a new video at the Van Halen News Desk, Mr. Van Halen shares his experience working with The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation. This video was a presentation piece shown Monday at the Americans for the Arts gala in NYC, honoring the Foundation with their National Music Education Award.
Watch the video above.
The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation has donated over $20 million worth of instruments to over 1,400 schools, helping them to keep their musical education programs alive.
Edward Van Halen has donated 75 of his personal guitars to The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation. Ed is really proud to be associated the Foundation and he does what he does not for the accolades, but his love of music, passing it on and for the kids.
In this video, Edward explains, “I wanted to give back to the community, and especially kids in need who want an instrument but didn’t have the opportunity I had. I wanted to donate instruments because I have so many guitars and nobody would take them… until we found Mr. Holland’s Opus. It wasn’t [too long] after that that I came to one of your schools and there’s a kid playing one of my guitars. It makes you want to cry, you know? It was really that emotional for me.”
Besides donating the guitars, Ed and his brother, Alex, each donated money to the foundation.
The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation donates musical instruments to under-funded school music programs across the country in an effort to give more students the many benefits of music education, help them achieve more in school and inspire creativity and expression through playing music. Hundreds of thousands of students have benefited and thousands of instruments have been donated to 1,356 school music programs across the country.
Visit the website and Facebook of The Mr. Holland’s Opus Foundation.
Eddie and Janie Van Halen pictured with Vincent Womack and Foshay HS graduate Leo Ruiz.