By helping pay for college, we empower the brightest individuals to become who they were always destined to be.
An act of kindness by Janet D'Addario many years ago, along with inspiring work by Dr. Margaret Martin, led to the introduction with the Rita and Herbert Z. Gold Trust and the subsequent establishment of the D'Addario Foundation's College Scholarship Fund.
This scholarship is not about competition, test scores, or achievement. It’s about potential. These are kids that have fully dedicated themselves to their community music programs but still have financial obstacles in front of them. That’s where we come in. We’re helping them cover the many costs associated with college, and sticking with them through graduation. Most of these students are the first generation in their families to attend, and they don’t even have to study music. We simply want to empower them to continue to fulfill their amazing potential.
- Suzanne D’Addario
These programs provide students with challenges that build discipline, equanimity, and collaboration at every step, helping them gain the tools they need to show up for life in a much deeper way.
Many of these programs place students on a track that provides greater awareness of higher education at a younger age, giving them the skills, tools, and confidence to advance in education, in art, and in life.
Music education remains as much about the cognitive and social benefits seen in the immediate present as it is about the bountiful rewards reaped by future generations. With such diverse styles, traditions, and instrumentation at play, our recipients are contributing to a lush creative ecosystem for generations to come.
Our scholarship recipients are ambassadors of our work and embody the lasting positive change that results from a robust education in music. Here are the 2024 recipients.
Alice Li
UC Berkeley
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science
Ana Isabel Cardona Izquiel
Harvard University
Anthropology, Linguistics, Computer Science
Caleb Graupera
Harvard University
Government
“This is just a quick note to say how profoundly grateful we are for your thoughtfulness in creating the D'Addario scholarship program. This means so much to the 3 UpBeat students that have been awarded scholarships. We are very moved that D'Addario appreciates the fact that, while music can bring so very much into all our lives, there are very real obstacles that can prevent our students from continuing their journeys into adulthood. Your scholarship support is making a huge difference. Thank you so very much.” - Liza Austria, Founding Director, UpBeat NYC
"Coming from a city where there is a lot of poverty and public schools are underfunded, I can speak first-hand how it’s sad that so many kids do not have access to music education. Through my music program [Play On Philly] I’m seeing how much music education can change a student’s life, by giving them something to be passionate about and creating a safe space. It means a lot that foundations like the D’Addario Foundation reach out to students and give them something like music to immerse their time in, because so many of them need it." - Zora Nelson, NYU
All of these young people have some kind of potential in them. And if we don’t invest in them as a nation, regardless of where they come from or what color they are, if we don’t invest in them, we lose. Imagine this talent bottled up in these kids unexplored, un-invested. There are millions of kids like this in this country who do not have the resources to become everything that they could be. And shame on us if we can’t do this better. But fortunately, these programs are doing the job that sometimes the bigger society fails to do.
- Michelle Obama
This scholarship is intended for students participating in D'Addario Foundation grantee programs. Have high schoolers that would be great candidates? Reach out to us at foundation@daddario.com for more information.
By helping pay for college, we empower the brightest individuals to become who they were always destined to be.
You can now donate the spare change from your everyday credit or debit card purchases by joining the D’Addario Foundation’s Round-Up Program.
