After months of silence, Take Note Colorado returned to the public stage this week to announce the five school districts that will pilot its ambitious, statewide music-education program.

Gov. John Hickenlooper joined The Fray lead singer Isaac Slade, plus school and Take Note officials, in the gym at Aurora’s Clyde Miller P-8 School on Monday to talk about the nonprofit initiative — the goal of which is to give every student in Colorado public schools access to music education.

Of course, they also couldn’t resist playing a song.

“The kids were over the moon,” said Karen Radman, executive director of Take Note. “They played ‘May the Circle Remain Unbroken,’ an old song from the ’60s that’s kind of this folky, campsite song. It got the kids super excited, and that’s what this is all about.”

Slade’s star power and Hickenlooper’s banjo-picking skills were there to sell not only Take Note but also its new online resource, Music Match, which lets educators list music needs in their classrooms. Community members can then search from a map to see if they can help, whether by providing and repairing instruments, sitting in on performances, or offering instruction.

That’s a crucial step for Take Note: Despite the support of Hickenlooper and music industry heavy-hitters — such as AEG Presents president Chuck Morris — Take Note is still figuring out its budgetary and staffing needs, which Hickenlooper initially estimated could be between $8 million and $10 million per year for the program to be self-sustaining.

John Leyba, The Denver Post Isaac Slade and Governor Hickenlooper share a laugh after their PSA shoot for an education-focused nonprofit on March 6, 2017.

John Leyba, The Denver Post Isaac Slade tunes up a guitar for Governor Hickenlooper before their PSA shoot to announce the foundation March 6, 2017 in Denver, Colorado at the Governors office.

Seth McConnell, The Denver Post Nathaniel Rateliff performs during the Colorado Rising flood relief benefit concert at the 1st Bank Center on Oct. 27, 2013 in Broomfield.



Connecting schools directly to the community is a low-cost way to kick start the mission, Radman said.

“We still don’t have any staff, so we can’t manage that (aspect of it), but we can put educators directly in touch with people,” she said.

Take Note’s highest-profile event thus far was in May 2017, a fundraising concert at the FirstBank Center that drew about 4,500 people to hear sets from marquee Colorado acts Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats, OneRepublic, Slade, Todd Park Mohr and Jeremy Lawton of Big Head Todd and the Monsters, Bill Nershi of the String Cheese Incident, and Tracksuit Wedding.

The concert grossed more than $500,000 for Take Note, allowing the 501c(3) to allocate $450,000 in “seed funding” to its five pilot districts. They include Aurora Public Schools, La Junta’s East Otero School District, Grand Junction’s Mesa County Valley School District 51, Morgan County School District RE-3 in Fort Morgan, and the Roaring Fork School District.

“They were chosen at the launch by the steering committee in the governor’s office, which identified districts that were geographically diverse, different in size and had different kinds of student demographics,” Radman said.

La Junta, for example, has only three schools in its district, whereas the Aurora Public Schools district, the state’s most diverse, counts more than 40,000 students who speak at least 130 different languages.

“We’ve spent a lot of time with these five pilot districts, and with administrators and music teachers in the classroom,” Radman said. “We’re seeing lots of old and broken instruments in music rooms, and the need for instrument repair and professional development for music teachers. But each (district) has a unique set of challenges.”

More than 28,000 students in Colorado attend schools that do not offer formal arts education, and 50 percent of the state’s high schoolers are not in art classes, according to a 2014 survey by Colorado Creative Industries. Multiple national studies also have shown that children with music education have higher overall academic achievement and lower dropout rates, Take Note officials said.

“We’re in midst of working out our numbers to identify what the real cost is,” Radman said. “We hope in the next couple of months to really speak to it.”

Take Note is also gearing up for its second annual fundraising concert, which will return in May or June. The artists and an exact date and venue are still to be determined.