12-30-2024 12:06pm

FAME founder views music education as an instrument for success

Courtesy of Toni Lewis

UPPER MARLBORO, Md. - Toni Lewis, founder and CEO of the Bowie-based Foundation for the Advancement of Music & Education, would often tell her jazz band students that “it’s not where you do what you’re doing, but what you’re bringing to the table.”

Fifteen students would buzz into Lewis’s home in Bowie every Monday and Tuesday, walk through the front door to the FAME sign on the upper right wall, then head to the basement.

Jazz band rehearsals would begin, some students downstairs playing, others upstairs reviewing music notes. At the helm, Lewis, was the person who wanted everyone to succeed under the tutelage of Nat Adderley Jr., pianist, music composer and former music director for Luther Vandross.

Adderley worked to refine students' technical skills in music theory and music instruction, while Lewis focused on their character and preparing them for success. Lewis, who is not a musician or a music educator, has spent years preparing young musicians for college, careers and public performances.

As the daughter of sharecroppers from the small town of South Boston in Halifax County, Virginia, a young Lewis recalled how she would open her ears to the falling blue raindrops and hear what sounded like instruments, an early appreciation for the art of music.

Lewis’ family struggled with poverty before moving to Washington D.C. At the age of 12, when she began piano lessons for the first time, the instructor turned her away. From that moment, Lewis never pursued a career as a musician, but she learned that quality music education, regardless of socioeconomic status, remained her passion.

After several conversations with a close friend about her desire to provide music education, a pivotal phone call happened in July 2004. During that call, a friend told her, “This is the last time you’re going to call me; we are going to establish the organization today.”

FAME was formed, initially created as a scholarship program to assist aspiring music students who lacked the resources to attend college. However, Lewis realized that working with young musicians needed a broader approach.

Eventually, FAME expanded its offerings to include mentorship, financial support and hands-on musical training, funded by Toni and her family, fundraisers by the Richard Payne Trio, and a grant from now deceased Douglas J.J. Peters, when he was the Prince George’s County District 4 councilman.

This past summer, FAME marked its 20th year serving local students.

A NURTURING LEADER

Lewis had no formal background in the field of music prior to launching FAME. She did not study music in college or have music teaching experience. Instead, according to colleagues, students, and fellow acquaintances, Lewis modeled leadership skills and coached her students to conduct themselves in a professional manner.

“She wasn’t just the CEO or the boss,” said Langston Hughes II, former saxophone player with FAME, a Howard University graduate and current student at The Juilliard School of Music. “She was like everybody’s grandmother in a certain way,” Hughes said.

Lewis was the nurturing leader who made sure each student greeted each other before rehearsals, the leader who straightened the boys' ties before a show, the leader who coached students on what to expect before events, he said.

A Bowie native and inaugural member of the FAME Jazz Band in 2015, Hughes was a sophomore in high school during his first audition. The audition, held at the University of Maryland’s Clarence Smith Performing Arts Center, required students to showcase their talent in front of a panel of judges that included Lewis, Adderley and a few others.

“Of course they had to know the scales even if they didn’t play them perfectly, but there were other things we looked for in terms of character,” Lewis said. “There were kids that I thought might be troubled, but I knew that we could get them over the hump.”

SCHOLAR MUSICIANS

Of the 45 middle and high school students who auditioned at that time, only 14 were selected. The selection process was only the start of demonstrating their instrumental ability.

FAME’s Jazz Band program practiced twice a week with a day meant for music instruction, taught initially by Adderley for two years, and the other session devoted to music theory and the fundamentals of compositions, rhythm and melodies.

However, Lewis introduced a third weekly element to the program, academic tutoring. “We wanted a well-rounded musician,” Lewis said. “We call them scholar musicians.”

Ella Wheeler, an electric bass player who auditioned for FAME in 2020, was unsure of her music skills as a high school sophomore. But Lewis and her staff believed in Wheeler’s potential.

“They really saw some vision for me when I was playing the electric bass that even I couldn’t see,” Wheeler said. “But so far, it has definitely been the best decision for me.”

Wheeler considered herself a person who would sit in the back of a large group of people, but by her senior year, she transitioned into a leadership role as the head of the jazz band. “Toni always brought out my confidence,” Wheeler said.

Now, Wheeler is a junior at the Berklee College of Music in Boston who plays the electric bass.

MUSIC IN SCHOOLS

Lewis has helped expand music opportunities to students across Prince George’s County. There is a growing list of schools that have received support from FAME, including Bowie High School.

“It [music education] is a priority, not the first thing on the cutting board,” Lewis said.

“You got to have arts,” Lewis said. “It’s so necessary to have that creativity as far as I’m concerned to succeed in the other things in life.”

The approved total operating budget for arts in fiscal year 2015 was about $3.8 million, compared to $15.8 million in fiscal year 2025, according to the Prince George’s County Public Schools budget. This increase—more than tripling since fiscal 2015—reflects the county’s growing investment in arts education funding.

However, the direction of this funding, Lewis said, “depends on who's in office, who the political folks are, and who's in the schools, who's leading the schools, the superintendent or the CEO.”

Where some school music programs lack resources, FAME has helped fill the gap by collecting donated instruments and providing other support, including helping to fund music lab equipment at Andrew Jackson Academy.

Benjamin McKnight, a 33-year educator and current music chair of the Andrew Jackson Academy, praised the county for its “solid instrumental leadership.” However he said, "we are lacking when it comes to the buy-in, what is necessary for a successful music program.”

In terms of class size, he said, "we need to have 30-plus or 20-plus, or we can’t have the class.” “It’s a site-based issue,” McKnight said.

While teaching at a district summer camp for concert bands, a fellow music colleague, Alonzo Giles at Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. Wise High School, brought up the topic of computer labs for music class. “So he showed me the labs, and I was in awe,” McKnight said. “Then he said let me introduce you to Toni.”

The Andrew Jackson Academy received twelve digital audio workstations and a recording audio booth on behalf of Lewis and FAME, with a majority of the design, equipment and project preparations coming from FAME.

SUMMER WORKSHOPS

Lewis also sought partners in higher education.

Bill Evans, a 50-year music educator and director of the Music Technology Lab at the University of Maryland’s School of Music, recalled a conversation with Lewis in 2011 that sparked FAME’s Summer Music Program.

“I was teaching at UMD’s music tech lab and Toni happened to come by and say, ‘Can I watch you teach?,’ ” Evans said. “Then she proposed that we start a Summer Music Technology Program.”

The program, supporting up to 200 students, is conducted daily for two weeks in July with instrumental instruction workshops, music technology and math tutoring.

“Like all good leaders, she picks qualified people that she can trust and she lets them go, she listens to them,” Evans said.

Xavier Board covers Bowie as a student reporter in the University of Maryland Local News Network.