Blue Bear School of Music

Blue Bear School of Music is a non-profit organization founded in San Francisco, California in 1971. Blue Bear has trained over 20,000 students in voice, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, piano, bass, drums, horns, songwriting, bands and ensembles. The School currently has more than 1,700 members annually enrolled in small group classes and private or semi-private lessons. Blue Bear offers numerous music programs for disadvantaged youth throughout the year.

Past celebrity sponsors have included Blackalicious, Charles Brown, Cake, Tracy Chapman, Les Claypool, The Doobie Brothers, Green Day, John Lee Hooker, Metallica, Rancid, Carlos Santana and The Donnas.

Blue Bear School of Music was founded as "Blue Bear Waltzes School of Genuine Music" in the summer of 1971 by a rock band called "Wolfgang & Strauss" Before moving to San Francisco they lived in Northern California on the Bear River. For a period in the mid-1970s, when the founding members moved on, Blue Bear was run by a co-operative of teachers and students.

In 1978, operations moved from the original storefront on Ocean Avenue to Fort Mason Center. Blue Bear's current Board of Trustees include co-founder and Board President Steve Savage, and well known singer/songwriter/keyboard player Bonnie Hayes. The current board chair is Dominic Haigh. Day-to-day operations of Blue Bear are under the direction of Interim Executive Director Steve Savage. Carol Snow, Chief Financial Officer and Dennis Criteser, Program Director, are both former Blue Bear students who have been associated with the school for more than 35 and 25 years respectively.

Blue Bear offers a number of programs for underserved youth which provide music education in the schools, in addition to underwritten summer programs at Blue Bear and youth centers, as well as sliding scale tuition programs for youth and adult students.

In April 2007 five Blue Bear affiliated artists and groups provided artistic services to the Project Homeless Connect event held at Bill Graham Auditorium. In February 2009 Blue Bear was presented with a Certificate of Honor by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, which commended the organization for its ongoing efforts in bringing quality, affordable music education to diverse communities throughout San Francisco.

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