Founded in 2017, Pitch Pipe Foundation links great artists to communities in great need, healing minds and uplifting spirits through music. Since its establishment, Pitch Pipe Foundation has focused its efforts to empower disadvantaged populations through music. Initially focusing on trafficking in persons in South Asia and Veterans in the USA, Pitch Pipe Foundation has expanded to the Middle East, South and Central Asia.
To date Pitch Pipe Foundation has worked with over 70 nonprofits in South and Central Asia which aid low-income, at-risk women and children. We provide free health and social services for trafficked women, educate children both living in slums and in elite communities, and expose the public to high quality, classical music. Our team provides visa assistance, in-country and international transportation arrangements, airport pickup, event promotion, procurement of educational and printed materials, and other technical and logistical support, processing of vendor payments, artist honorarium negotiation and reimbursement. The Pitch Pipe Foundation secures donations from airlines, hotels, music rental companies and American universities for travel, accommodations and performance space. Working with our local partners we obtain funding, create and manage a broad-reaching social outreach program and concert series. Since inception we have invited artists from all over the world to put on 55 concerts, performing for and working with over 14,500 adults and children.
Domestically, we organized 60 concerts nationwide for the Veterans Affairs Administration across the United States for our nation’s military heroes. Leveraging our network of musicians and artists, recruiting new groups, cold calling orchestras/managers/agents and reaching out to universities we found local groups in far flung corners of the US to perform at local VA Hospitals. Two years after this event many of these groups still go back and perform regularly; this concert series has created a lasting relationship between veterans’ hospitals and the artists.
Our performers include international artists, university professors and musicologists, members of the Cleveland Orchestra, Broadway singers/actors & performers on Seabourn Cruise Line who showcase a variety of classical, jazz & contemporary music styles. Each artist performs at the highest level of their field must be able to interact and connect with the audience, lead discussions with student groups, and above all else, be adaptable.
Pitch Pipe Foundation founder, Jennifer Heemstra, is a professional pianist and entrepreneur, was honored with the Young Alumni Award by Michigan State University in 2018, was the commencement Speaker at Michigan State University in 2017, and in 2016, she received the Secretary of State Award for Outstanding Volunteerism Abroad from Secretary John Kerry. Ms. Heemstra created a prior organization, Kolkata Classics (founded in Calcutta, India, Dec 2014) where she developed much of the skills and experience that she brings to the Pitch Pipe Foundation.
Pitch Pipe Foundation is committed to partnering with high-quality musicians to drive social change around the world, one community at a time.
Pitch Pipe Foundation was founded in honor of Arthur Holthaus, the founder’s 102-year-old grandpa who sang in a barber shop quartet for over 80 years of his life and who entertained the elderly in nursing homes and church until he passed November 2018.
Arthur Holthaus
The Ever Ready Four
A special thanks to our partners & sponsors who have supported the work of the Pitch Pipe Foundation:
Pitch Pipe Foundation is a 501(c)3 tax-exempt public charity, Federal Taxpayer I.D. #81-2890460