The Kanack School of Musical Artistry

Our Mission

The Kanack School of Musical Artistry is the not-for-profit epicenter of Creative Ability Development (CAD) within our community and internationally. We provide an enriching, nurturing, and inclusive environment where all can grow to reach their fullest potential: artistically, creatively, socially, and intellectually.

CAD defined: a pedagogical system which uses disciplined musical improvisation to develop the creative part of the brain, to heighten each student’s innate musicality, and to enhance creative ability across multiple intellectual pursuits.

Our Vision

• Expand the opportunities for enhanced learning, personal growth, character education, leadership, community involvement, and true artistic development.
• Provide a musical training program for students and educators which exemplifies the ideal training of a whole musician: technically masterful, uniquely creative, and completely literate.
• Build the organization’s capacity and ensure its long-term sustainability through collaborations, program awareness, philanthropic giving, and strategic capital investments in facilities and services.
• Lead research regarding the impact of CAD on brain growth and development.
• Foster and promote the understanding of CAD’s pedagogical impact: specifically the link between the disciplined practice of freedom of choice, and heightened achievement in musical, academic, and social spheres.
• Foster and promote the understanding of the link between the practice of CAD and enhanced peaceful social interaction within educational systems and beyond.

Our Values

• Inclusiveness
• Harmony in educational environments
• Discipline through practice
• Artistic freedom
• Internal motivation
• Empathetic listening
• Appreciation, respect, and care for the environment of Creative Development

Our age has been called the “age of consciousness,” with good reason. We concentrate most of our learning on logic and reason, and very little on creativity. However, any advancement in art, science, philosophy, medicine, etc., is through a combination of great intelligence and great creative ability. Indeed, “genius” is defined as “great mental capacity and inventive ability,” and it is genius that keeps us moving forward on a path of greater humanity.

Obviously we can’t all be geniuses, but I believe that geniuses are developed through their own deeply felt needs. The more we can create these needs in our children, the more like geniuses they will become and the greater our world will be as a result of their greater humanity.

“Creativity is the opposite of destruction.” The educational equation is simple:

Teach them, encourage them and allow them to fulfill their own natural needs in creative ways;

Encourage them to be sincere in their expression (which is the search for truth);

Encourage them to be their best (which is the search for beauty); and

Teach them to be always open to, and to have respect for the ideas of others. (Creativity is built on creativity: Each new idea grows from an old one.)

If we can learn to teach our children by this equation we may see them grow to be like geniuses in their manner of thought and expression, and as a result, we may also see them grow to be greater human beings.

– From The Philosophy and Method of Creative Ability Development, Alice Kay Kanack