Door Dog Music Productions

Door Dog Music Productions (Door Dog) has been presenting the annual San Francisco World Music Festival and running music classes in San Francisco elementary schools since 1994. Led by musicologist and master Chinese instrumentalist Michael Santoro, the organization’s multiple programs are linked by a vision that seeks to connect people around the world, and within diverse local communities, through the teaching, producing and presentation of traditional musical forms. During the most recent grant period the company brought a Kurdish youth group to perform in the Bay Area as well as master musicians from Armenia, Italy, Israel and China. Inspired by the unique collaborations these artistic polyglots create when they come together for the annual festival, Door Dog has received significant funding to establish an International Youth Orchestra. While it will take several years to build, the orchestra will ultimately pair young Central Asian musicians skilled in a range of cultural practices with Bay Area youth currently learning Chinese, Cantonese and Tibetan instruments and musical forms. Renewed funding Door Dog will underwrite its local arts education programs and sustain its annual festival while it develops its International Youth Orchestra project abroad. (Renewal $90,000/3; 13% of organizational budget).