Rojas Music Foundation
A Case Statement · 2026
A Children's Orchestra in Dallas–Fort Worth

Music saved my life.
Now it's going to save theirs.

A proposal from Eduardo Rojas  ·  Founder  ·  Concert pianist
An open letter
from Eduardo Rojas

Why we are doing this

In Eduardo's own words — unedited.

I grew up in Colombia in a very humble home. Five kids, including one of special needs. We did not have TV, of course no phones — pretty much it was just soccer, regular public school, and music. I grew up in a home where literally our entertainment was singing and playing together. On a weekly basis the whole family used to play gigs, funerals, weddings, and my dad used to have a very small music studio in our small living room where we used to teach kids free of charge. I remember helping the students keep a steady tempo by banging the music stand with a pencil — that was our metronome.

We lived in a very small town in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, with zero opportunities. Music was everything for our family, and teaching was always our way to give back, even though we did not make any money out of it.

I was completely in love with the piano, and where we lived there was no school of music of any kind. I left home when I was thirteen years old. Yes, just thirteen. That was way too young. I tried to live with my sister, but after a few years I lived in people's homes where they did not charge me for staying or food. I used to move every couple of months for years until I could pay for a room in another family's home.

“ These teenage years were very hard. Music saved me from all of that.

Dealing with loneliness, living with no parents, no money, in an environment full of alcohol and drugs and you name it — music saved me from all of it. For years I had just one meal a day. Even the professors from the conservatory I was attending used to pay for some meal plans for me. With nothing else but music, I practiced between eight and twelve hours a day, from when I was thirteen to nineteen, primarily to avoid the heavy parties around me. I also did not have the money for any of the activities the rich kids could pay for.

So for me, music is more than my profession. It is the whole reason I am alive, and the whole reason I am doing what I am doing here in the United States. Music gave me all the tools I needed to migrate, learn another language, and build a life. I arrived in 2006 with no English and one hundred dollars in my pocket.

“ I arrived in 2006 with no English and one hundred dollars in my pocket.

These tools are what I want to give to those kids and families in need. Fortunately for my son and for your kids, we have the means to invest in our children's education. But what about the kids whose parents don't have those means — because of immigration status, because of psychological hardship, because of lack of education, because of a difficult environment? For those kids, giving them a high-quality music education is not just music lessons. As it was for me, music can be the way out and the door to a better future — not just in music, but in anything they choose to become.

Music is everything: discipline, love, understanding others, culture, history, reading, math, psychological wellness. It also hugely supports their academic education.

We need to raise the necessary money to save as many kids as we can. I know "save" is a big word — but as I said, music saved me from many, many troubles growing up. We definitely need more music to shape better future citizens.

Eduardo Rojas
Founder & Concert Pianist
01
What we are building

A free children's orchestra at a Title I school in our backyard.

In our first year, the Rojas Music Foundation will launch an after-school orchestra program at one Title I elementary school in the western Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex — schools where most children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and where private music education simply isn't an option for their families.

Forty children will receive an instrument, world-class instruction, and a place in a real ensemble — at no cost to their families. Year one is the proof. Years two through five expand the model to additional schools as funding allows.

And the impact does not end with the forty. Throughout the year, our educational concerts with guest artists open the program to the wider school community — reaching hundreds more children, parents, and neighbors who would otherwise never sit in a room with a live string quartet or a working professional musician.

The model is rigorous. The mission is simple: give children who would otherwise never touch a violin or a cello the same lifeline that music has given Eduardo, and millions of children before him.

40
Children served, Year 1
1school
Title I partner site
$0
Cost to every family
3years
Per-student commitment
Plus — and just as important
up to400
Children, parents, and community members reached each year through our educational concerts with guest artists.
02
The model we follow

A method that has lifted millions of children out of poverty.

We did not invent this. The Foundation's program is built on the proven pedagogy of Colombia's Fundación Batuta and Venezuela's El Sistema — the method that produced Gustavo Dudamel, and that has, for fifty years, used the orchestra as a tool for human development in the most underserved communities in Latin America.

i.

The orchestra is the classroom.

From the very first lesson, every child plays in an ensemble. Music is not learned in isolation — it is learned shoulder-to-shoulder, in the pursuit of something none of them could achieve alone.

ii.

Music is the tool; the mission is human.

Discipline. Persistence. Listening. Belonging. The instrument is a vehicle. What we are really teaching a child is how to be a citizen, a teammate, and a person of patience and craft.

iii.

The family is part of the program.

A child cannot succeed in this work without a family that believes in it. We invite parents and siblings into the rehearsals, the concerts, the celebrations. The orchestra becomes the family's orchestra.

03
What every child — and their community — receives

A free seat in an ensemble — and a community lifted alongside them.

Each of the forty children in the inaugural cohort receives the full program at no cost to their family. Through our concerts with guest artists, hundreds more in the school community share in the experience.

An instrument of their own

A high-quality, properly-sized violin, viola, or cello — assigned to each child for the full school year. Maintained, insured, and replaced as they grow.

Expert instruction, twice a week

Group classes and ensemble rehearsals led by professional teaching artists — two afternoons a week throughout the school year, ninety minutes each session. Three hours of focused, hands-on teaching every week, in a classroom most of these children would never otherwise see.

A multi-year journey

We do not enroll children for a semester. Each child is invited into a three-year arc, with progressive curriculum, increasing responsibility, and pathways to high school programs and beyond.

A community around them

Family rehearsals, public concerts at venues across the metroplex, and inspirational performances by visiting artists. The orchestra becomes a place where the whole family belongs.

And the wider community
up to400

A concert hall the whole school can sit in.

Several times each year, the Foundation brings professional guest artists into the school for educational concerts that are free and open to every student, sibling, and parent — not just the forty in the orchestra. For most of these children, it will be the first time they sit in a room with a live string quartet, a working pianist, a real chamber ensemble. We expect to reach up to four hundred children, parents, and neighbors each year through these events.

04
What it costs

Forty children. One school. The full program.

We believe a foundation should be transparent with donors about the cost of its work. Here is what Year One requires.

$125K
total Year One, fully loaded — program plus governance
Line Amount
Program director$36,000
Full-year leadership of the program, on the ground
Site administrator$3,700
On-site coordination, $50 a day across 74 program days
Teaching artists (4)$20,720
$70 per class, 74 classes a year, one teacher per ten children
Instruments — rental, maintenance & insurance$18,000
A full fleet of violins, violas, and cellos, kept in repair and insured
Materials & consumables$4,000
Method books, sheet music, stands, rosin, shoulder rests, accessories
Educational concerts$16,500
Professional guest artists, free and open to the whole community
Student concerts$6,500
Two student performances a year, winter and spring
Program subtotal $105,420
Governance & operations — what keeps the Foundation accountable
Insurance — directors & officers, general liability$5,000
Protects the board and the Foundation as it begins operating
Bookkeeping, tax filing & compliance$8,000
Independent accounting, annual IRS Form 990, background checks
Contingency reserve$7,000
A protective buffer, roughly 6% of the budget
Year One total $125,420
Per-child math. The direct program cost works out to roughly $2,635 per child for the full school year. A $2,900 sponsorship covers one child's place — twice-weekly instruction, an instrument with insurance, and a seat in the ensemble — and helps carry the shared cost of running the program well.
Years two and beyond. Because instruments are rented rather than bought, the annual cost stays steady at roughly this level per site. Every additional school we add brings forty more children into the program at the same per-site rate. Our growth plan is driven by funding, not ambition.
05
How a gift translates

Every dollar maps to a child, an instrument, a year.

A gift to the Rojas Music Foundation is not a contribution to overhead. It is a direct investment in a specific child and a specific outcome.

Friend
$250
A month of group lessons for one child.
Patron
$1,000
An instrument placed in the hands of one child for a full year.
Sponsor a child
$2,900
or $290 / month
A full school year for one child — twice-weekly instruction, instrument rental and insurance, ensemble and concert participation. Everything, covered.
Sponsor a teacher
$10,000
One teaching artist for the full school year, reaching ten children directly.
Founding partner
$50,000+
A leading share of the inaugural cohort, named recognition, and a seat at the founding table.
06
Who we are

A Colombian concert pianist, a Dallas Symphony concertmaster, and a board built to deliver.

The Foundation is governed by a five-member board with the artistic, educational, operating, and financial credentials to do this work — and to do it accountably.

President & Chief Executive Officer

Eduardo Rojas

Internationally acclaimed concert pianist, educator, and arts advocate, born in Barranquilla, Colombia. He has performed with the National Symphony of Colombia, the Bogotá Philharmonic, the Richmond Symphony, and orchestras across the Americas and Asia. Artist Diploma and Master's in Piano Performance from Texas Christian University; International Bösendorfer and Yamaha Artist. Founder of the Rojas Music Foundation and the Rojas School of Music.

Chief Operating Officer

Carlos Bujanda

Chief Executive Officer of Toyota Financial Services Colombia, with prior leadership across Toyota's operations in eight countries. Formerly Senior Vice President of credit card innovation at Synchrony Financial, with earlier roles at American Express, Deloitte, and PwC. Master of Liberal Arts in Management from Harvard University and an MBA from the Asian Institute of Technology. He brings the financial and operating rigor that keeps the Foundation accountable.

Vice President

Edwin Archbold

Principal of Real Property at Ryan, with nearly twenty years of expertise in complex property tax across healthcare, industrial, data centers, and multifamily. A proven leader in scaling teams and delivering client results. A devoted family man whose family shares a deep passion for music, and a trustee of St. Timothy School, a classical parish school in Uptown Dallas.

Artistic Director

Gary Levinson

Senior Principal Associate Concertmaster of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Artistic Director of the Chamber Music Society of Fort Worth. Juilliard-trained under Dorothy DeLay and Glenn Dicterow; New York Philharmonic solo debut in 1991. He has collaborated with Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, and Jaap van Zweden, and performs on a 1726 Antonio Stradivari violin provided by the Dallas Symphony Association.

Treasurer & Secretary

Shaina Thomas

Assistant Headmaster at Founders Classical Academy of Flower Mound, dedicated to academic excellence and the liberal arts. Bachelor's in Theatre Education with a minor in Literature and Music from Oral Roberts University, and a Master of Education from the University of North Texas. A committed advocate for music education and its power to cultivate discipline, beauty, and joy in young people.

Join us

Help us put a violin in the hands of a child who would never have held one.

Year One launches in fall 2026. Forty children are waiting. We are raising $125,000 to make it real — and to prove a model we will then bring to the next school, and the next.

Make a gift Schedule a conversation