Brooklyn Youth Arts and Justice provides student musicians with unique volunteer opportunities to perform in concerts, socially engage in their communities, and learn to make a difference together.
Donate today
Brooklyn Youth Arts and Justice is a non-profit organization whose mission is to provide collaborative performance opportunities to student musicians as a means for engagement in social initiatives through education, volunteer work, and concert curation.
Lively Student-Led Concerts
We empower students to choose the project they want to be a part of, either as performer or volunteer staff. We bring performances to diverse audiences, creating spaces for dialogue, reflection, and celebration.
Education through Workshops & Concert Outings
We explore the intersections of music, history, and social justice through workshops, educational visits, and guest speakers.
Reviving Hidden Voices
We perform works by BIPOC and/or female composers whose contributions have been overlooked or erased.
Raising Funds for Local Advocacy
We provide financial support to local organizations such as food banks, migrant shelters, literacy programs, and LGBTQ+ teen homelessness support organizations.
Your donation is more than a gift—it’s a call to action.
By contributing, you’re helping students discover their voices, revitalize forgotten histories, and create music that inspires justice. Every dollar you give supports us in getting closer to organizing unique concerts, hosting exciting guest speakers, and creating transformative experiences for students.
Donate today and help our students embark on a journey of Arts Activism that will empower them to continually create change in their communities throughout the rest of their lives.
Sponsorship offers a unique opportunity to directly impact the lives of students while aligning your support with BYAJ. From funding scholarships and workshops to sponsoring community performances, sponsors receive prominent recognition on our website, in our event materials, and in our programs.
ContactCover the costs of one student’s expenses to join the program. Contribute to our scholarship fund to support students who would otherwise not be able to join.
Donate $75
Give students the chance to learn music, be coached, and excel together.
Donate $250
Make a valuable impact in our future endeavors by donating or making an in-kind donation towards securing a venue for our concerts.
We are committed to addressing the harms imposed by structural inequities in our society through student arts activism. We believe that being a musician in the world involves standing up for what’s right.
We are an organization that brings everyone to the table and champions solutions that take the interests of everyone involved into account.
We figure out solutions through collaborative means. We share space and give each other the grace to make mistakes, ask questions, and become more curious about how we can achieve common goals.
Born from a vision of inclusion and empowerment, our nonprofit began with a simple yet revolutionary idea: to use music as a bridge between the past and the future, justice and art, silence and sound. BYAJ aims to offer students the opportunity to see themselves in the music they create.
Through collaboration, activism, and reflection, our students' performances evolve into a dynamic space of self-expression and justice. By centering historically marginalized voices and empowering young creators, we are looking to build a movement which activates the next generation of student musicians.
Ruth brings 25+ years of experience to BYAJ, both as a freelance performance artist and a private teacher and chamber coach. Leaving behind OperaTampa, Eckerd College, The Pinellas County School for the Arts at Gibbs High School, and a large private studio, she relocated to NYC in 2014.
Here she continues her work partnering with students and families in discovering and developing their unique gifts so that they are empowered to create change in our world.
BYAJ students will collaborate with professional musicians in presenting an afternoon concert spotlighting the works of female composers, such as Amy Beach, Julia Perry, Grazyna Bacewicz, Florence Price, and Clara Schumann. Reception following.
St. Ann and the Holy Trinity Episcopal Church
157 Montague St.
Brooklyn, NY 11201