Music In Our Schools

Music in Our Schools Fundraising Program

Read what other schools are saying about us!

Thank you for your interest in "Music In Our Schools!" We’re excited at the chance to work with you and your music
program. Granted we’re just a bit biased, but we feel exposing students to different kinds of musical experiences,
including but certainly not limited to a cappella, is a great opportunity to expand their horizons.

So, how exactly does this work? The short and sweet version is that Home Free will workshop with your students
during the day, and then put on a concert that evening, splitting the proceeds with you. You probably want a little
more detail than that though, so here are the nuts and bolts of it. First, what exactly do we do during the day with
your students?

EDUCATE - Home Free has several different approaches we can take during our workshops with your
students, including but not limited to:

Song Writing: We explain how you can take a song from start to finish and the processes involved within.
After doing so, we then walk through a song together, with the choirs offering ideas for key, style, and topic,
as we build a song from scratch.
Song Arrangement: Our musical director, Chris Rupp, takes a simple song Home Free performs and
explains how the basic harmony of it is put together. Then, we show from that harmony how you can put the
notes together and assign them to their respective parts in the song, creating the entire framework with just
a few voices.
Vocal Percussion: Assuming you've had a chance to hear our demo CD or some audio clips from our
website, you've heard the amazing sounds Adam is able to create using nothing more than his mouth.
Adam spends time going over the basics of vocal percussion, explaining how the sounds are made and
how it can be used in vocal and instrumental ensembles. This also includes plenty of student participation
as everyone in the choir learns and creates the sounds as well.

WORKSHOP / CLINIC - Perhaps you'd like to have us work with your student groups? Home Free has over
30 years of combined performing experience not just in a cappella, but also in choir, band, jazz, theatre, and
whatever else you can think of.

Choir / Ensembles: Home Free has a rich and diverse musical background (particularly our bass, Chris
Foss, who has a masters degree in choral conducting) and is happy to work with your choirs, large or small,
and can even work with your schools band, jazz band, orchestra, or any small ensembles as well.
Musical Theatre / Performance: While the entire group has a strong performance background, Matt
Atwood is particularly adept in this area as he has been a professional actor for many years (you can
regularly see him in theatres around Minneapolis and St. Paul) and can help bring out the “presentation and
showmanship” of your group or soloist.

ASSEMBLIES - What about the students who aren't in music, but would still love to hear the group?

General Assembly: Some schools like to have us perform for the entire student body for about 20 minutes,
usually in the auditorium or gymnasium. Not only does this give the entire school an opportunity to take a
break and enjoy great music, but it also greatly increases ticket sales for the evening concert!
Lunch Performances: Other schools prefer us to sing for the students during their lunch period. This way
students are not taken out of class but they still get the benefit of hearing us perform. This is also a great
opportunity for select students to sell tickets to the show(usually a table or booth is set up).

Ok, thats the gist of how the day goes by...what about the evening concert?

FUND-RAISING CONCERT

Opening Act: Home Free STRONGLY encourages student groups to perform before the concert. While
certainly giving the students a new performing opportunity, it also greatly increases ticket sales as more
members of the community will come to hear the groups.
Our Performance: Home Free will usually perform for about an hour depending on how long the opening
acts go, and of course we'll be around afterwards to sign CDs and take picture and such.
Collaboration: One of the unique things that Home Free offers is the possibility to collaborate with your
choir or jazz band. Home Free has several original arrangements that we love to use with the students,
featuring both the student groups and us.
Ticket Sales: As far as the financial logistics go, after taking our travel expenses off the top ($60 per hour
from Mankato), as well as any additional pre-approved expenses (i.e press materials) we split the proceeds
from the evening concert ticket sales 50/50 to help your music program raise money! In the unfortunate and
unlikely event that the evening concert is very poorly attended and total ticket sales are under $1400, Home
Free does ask for the first $700 from the tickets.

Hopefully thats not too confusing – here are two example scenarios:

Home Free asks that our basic travel expenses, and any publicity expenses are guaranteed. For example,
we charge $60 an hour for total travel distance, and we can print tickets and posters for you if you want (we
have a lot of publicity materials available to help promote the concert). So, say your school is 2 hours away
and we print some tickets and posters at a cost of $30, then Home Free would ask that $150 be
guaranteed. The lowest amount of money we've ever had a concert though was $480 in total ticket sales,
and that was because it was 15 below and a near blizzard. Even in that scenario though, there was no
actual cost to the school. This guarantee just basically protects us from a sudden cancellation or
unforeseen event that calls off the concert right before we go on.
As far as the final split goes, Home Free takes those basic expenses off the top, then splits the rest with the
first $700 going to us. For example, let's say there was $1800 in ticket sales. We'd take $150 in expenses
off the top, leaving a split of $1650. We take the first $700, you the 2nd $700, and then split the remainder,
leaving both parties with $825. If the evening ticket sales were only $1250, we'd take the $150 for expenses
off the top, then the first $700, leaving you with $400. So you see, you can not lose!

Bottom line is, no matter what happens at the concert, there is
VIRTUALLY NO FINANCIAL RISK WHATSOEVER TO YOU OR YOUR SCHOOL.

Outside of this arrangement, we will also be selling our CDs and DVDs and ask that someone from your choir can
help us out with that (as we’ll be too busy performing!).

PROMOTION

Concerned about selling enough tickets? Don't worry! We have a number of tools that will help you along the
way. Radio ad, newspaper ad (since its a school associated event and fundraiser, often times the local
radio station or newspaper is happy to offer discounted or even free advertising, which can really help),
school and community posters, promotional video, reminder cards, tickets, and even a school dedicated
page on our website! All of this stuff is free to you (costs $50 taken out of the ticket sales) and will be
designed printed and mailed to you. One final thought, some schools have made contests out of the ticket
sales – if you're interested in that, Home Free would be happy to take out the top two ticket sellers for dinner
prior to the concert.

Whew, thats a lot of info! If you have any more questions not answered here, please contact us by email or phone,
we'd be happy to chat with you. If you'd like to hear more of what we sound like, you can check out our cd page at
www.H ome F ree F rom T he T op.com. We look forward to hearing from you!