Upcoming Community Events
Sensory Friendly Hawaiian Music Concert | May 2nd, 2026, 2pm
We are seeking financial support for a Sensory-Friendly Hawaiian Music Concert to be presented on Saturday, May 2, 2026 at 2:00 PM at The Rosette in Austin, Texas. Sponsored by Adaptive Music, hosted at The Rosette by Austin Classical Guitar (ACG), and supported and staffed by Lifelong Learning with Friends (LLwF), this event is intentionally designed to provide an accessible, welcoming, and high-quality live music experience for individuals with sensory sensitivities, intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), autism, and their families. Rather than modifying a traditional concert model, this performance is structured from the ground up around inclusion, psychological safety, and community belonging.
Hawaiian music provides a powerful artistic foundation for this experience. Its warm tonal palette, gentle rhythmic feel, and emphasis on connection and storytelling create an environment that supports both calm regulation and joyful engagement. The program will feature ukulele and guitar repertoire, traditional Hawaiian melodies, and contemporary island-inspired selections performed at moderated sound levels with partially raised lighting and flexible audience norms. Attendees will be free to move, vocalize, or take breaks as needed, supported by trained staff and volunteers experienced in inclusive community practice.
Financial support will allow us to ensure that this concert remains accessible and affordable to participants while covering essential costs such as artist compensation, production needs, accessibility supports, staffing, outreach, and event coordination. Funding will directly support equitable access to live music for a community that is often underserved in traditional arts spaces. It will also strengthen a collaborative model that brings together Adaptive Music’s inclusive artistic framework, Austin Classical Guitar’s venue partnership, and LLwF’s established disability community network.
This concert is more than a single afternoon performance—it represents a replicable model for inclusive arts programming in Austin and beyond. With financial partnership, we can not only present this event with excellence and care, but also build momentum toward future sensory-friendly concerts and expanded community-based music access. Your support would directly contribute to creating a space where artistry and accessibility are not competing priorities, but shared values, and where every participant is welcomed in the spirit of aloha—connection, dignity, and belonging.
Budget Outline
Sensory-Friendly Hawaiian Music Concert
May 2, 2026 | The Rosette – Hosted by Austin Classical Guitar
Artist Compensation
- 3 Musicians @ $200 each ........................................ $600
- 1 Dancer ................................................................. $250
Subtotal – Artist Fees: $850
Materials & Production
- Sheet Music & Arrangements .................................. $25
- Printed QR Codes & Signage ................................... $25
(Digital program design secured – in-kind)
Subtotal – Materials: $50
Estimated Total Budget: $900
Upcoming Book: Access Over Mastery
A Book In Progress
Over the past several years, I have been working on a book that reflects on my experiences as a musician, educator, and facilitator of inclusive music environments. The project has been developing slowly alongside my teaching, and I am excited to share that the book is currently in progress and expected to be completed by early summer 2026.
Much of my early musical training centered around performance. Like many musicians, I was taught to focus on precision, technique, and mastery. Music was something you practiced until it was correct, refined, and ready to be performed. For a long time, I believed that was the highest expression of music.
But years of working with students and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities changed the way I understand music.
In many of the classrooms and programs where I teach, music looks very different from the traditional performance model. Participants interact with instruments in ways that are unique to them. Some communicate nonverbally. Others experience music primarily through rhythm, movement, or listening. Yet despite these differences, something powerful consistently happens in these environments.
People connect.
Participants listen to one another. They respond to rhythm. They build musical ideas together. Sound becomes a way of interacting that does not depend on technical mastery or verbal communication.
The book I am writing reflects on these experiences and the lessons they have taught me about music, education, and human connection. It explores how musical environments can be designed to invite participation, how instruments can support engagement, and how rhythm and listening can create spaces where people communicate through sound.
It is also a reflection on my own journey as a musician and teacher. Many of the ideas in the book grew out of moments in classrooms—small interactions that revealed something deeper about how people experience music and how powerful those experiences can be.
This project is still in development, and I will continue sharing updates here as the manuscript moves toward completion.
Music has a remarkable way of revealing things about people that we might otherwise overlook. Writing this book has been an opportunity to reflect on those moments and to explore what they might teach us about the role music can play in our lives.
More to come soon.
— Kirk Guthaus
