Ana Treviño Godfrey, Houston TX
If you ask Ana Treviño Godfrey what she does for a living, she’ll most likely tell you that she sings and dances—but that’s putting it mildly! Ana holds a doctorate in music; she is an internationally acclaimed opera singer; and she is a cofounder of the prestigious Mercury Orchestra in Houston, Texas. Ana is also the owner and director of Prelude Music Classes, which opened in 2006 and now offers Music Together classes to over five hundred children in Houston, Sugar Land, and The Woodlands. And it’s at Prelude, singing and dancing with children and families, where Ana has truly found her passion.
“In 2011, I made the important decision to stop performing, and…dedicate more time towards building community through music at Prelude,” Ana explains. “Music helps children’s emotional, spiritual, and cognitive development, but what matters most to me is that children find joy through making music.”
Ana’s dedication to making music with children inspired her to find ways to bring that music into the lives of Houston’s underserved youth through an initiative called Early Childhood Orchestra and Singing (ECHOS). A collaboration between Ana and her Mercury Orchestra cofounders, artistic director Antoine Plante and Ana’s husband and concertmaster Jonathan Godfrey, ECHOS brings the Music Together In School curriculum to severely underserved elementary schools and early childhood centers in the Houston area.
In June of this year, Prelude, in partnership with Mercury and with the generous support of business sponsors and Music Together families, hosted a celebratory musical event that raised over $16,000, for the outreach program. Thanks to Ana’s tireless fundraising efforts, a full semester of Music Together was successfully implemented this past spring at two Houston schools, where nearly two hundred preschoolers joyfully sang, danced, and explored instruments during their weekly music classes with Prelude’s Music Together teacher, Prill McAfee.
Prill recounted to Ana that there were musical moments during her classes that astonished her. In particular, Prill was especially moved by a precious four-year-old girl, who came up to her after a class and delightedly sang to her:
“I love music, it makes me happy, so much happy…it makes my heart happy.
It makes me sing ‘Dancing with Teddy, Dancing with Teddy,’ and I have my teddy bear in my house!”
It’s moments like this that reconfirm Ana’s belief in the extraordinary benefits of making music and inspire her to continue to move forward with her educational outreach goals. Currently, she is working on the launch of Prelude Music Foundation, a not-for-profit organization whose sole purpose is to procure more funding for Music Together classes in schools serving at-risk children. “I feel a calling to bring music to young people because it changes lives,” she says. “I believe that, when we give a child the opportunity to make music, they are free to learn, to soar, and to feel united to all humanity.”
—Kate Battenfeld is a Music Together Contributing Writer and Center Director of Joyful Jumping Music Together in Carlsbad, Oceanside, and Vista CA.