Atlanta Music Project by Dr. Joan Cartwright Dantes Y. Rameau holds a degree in Bassoon Performance from Yale University. He played with several orchestras, but his destiny was to found the Atlanta Music Project, where he teaches bassoon to underserved children. When Dantes taught in the New Haven public school system, he realized that students had no connection to Yale. Dantes said, “I had many opportunities in Canada that these children did not have. That spearheaded my decision to do community outreach.” From 2005 to 2007, he was the only black student at the Yale Music Conservatory. This was during the rise of The Obamas and others, who said, “If you make it, you have to reach back and help others.” In Hartford, Connecticut, Dantes recalled a student who went to an interview and was accepted. She was so shaken that she broke down in tears. But Dantes said, “I laughed my way through school because I was born seven miles north of Ottawa, Canada, and I had many opportunities for success.” In 2005, Dantes was one of 10 fellows in a one-year Nonprofit Management Program in Boston. He spent three months in Venezuela with conductor and violinist, Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez, founder of El Sistema USA, a nationwide movement of programs to effect social change through music for children. Ramírez directs the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Paris Opera.
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