Mission :

American Festival for the Arts (AFA) was established in 1993 to provide accessible, high-quality music education and performance opportunities for youth and to broaden the audience for both new American works and the standard classical music repertory.

History:

American Festival for the Arts (AFA) is a non-profit 501(c)(3) music education and concert presenting organization based in Houston, Texas.

In the summer of 1996, AFA reached its goal of establishing an annual Summer Music Conservatory and Concert Series for the youth and communities of Houston, Texas. Through its twelve year history, the Conservatory has experienced significant annual growth in enrollment, faculty, curriculum offerings, special projects and collaborations and has become recognized as one of the most important annual events in Houston’s cultural life and a model for programs of its kind around the nation.

As part of its tenth anniversary celebration in 2005, AFA reached another milestone in its history by opening a second campus in Beaumont serving the five county Southeast Texas region that includes Chambers, Hardin, Jefferson, Liberty and Orange counties. This new campus, based on AFA’s successful Houston model, has significantly extended AFA’s mission and goals throughout the Gulf Coast region.

With campuses located at Episcopal High School (Houston) and Austin Middle School (Beaumont), the Conservatory takes place during June and July, enrolls talented fifth through twelfth grade students from middle and senior high schools in the communities in and around each campus and provides important need-based tuition scholarship support for deserving students. The Conservatory includes programs for high school wind, brass, string, piano, harp, percussion, jazz, choral and composition students, middle school string students and, through those programs, presents spirited orchestra, chamber music, choral, jazz and faculty concerts free of charge to the general public in each community.

AFA’s 1996 Conservatory enrolled 43 seventh through twelfth grade students representing 27 different Houston area schools. Enrollment has grown substantially over subsequent seasons resulting in a 2006 enrollment of 258 fifth through twelfth grade students representing 101 area schools — an average enrollment growth rate of more than twenty percent. The 2006 AFA Summer Concert Series presented seventeen concerts to thousands of area music lovers and presented more American works and world premieres than any other Houston presenter.