As a young girl, Anne Fitzgibbon, now 53, discovered the clarinet and fell in love with music. It helped build her confidence and became a lifelong source of joy. Years later, when Anne became a policy advisor in the New York City Mayor’s Office, she was disturbed to realize how many communities were lacking the musical opportunities that she had grown up with.

Music is a life-affirming experience that every child should have access to, she thought. In a city with so much culture and talent, surely we can better support communities where resources are scarce.

Anne envisioned an organization that would provide free, year-round music training to young people in underserved communities across all five boroughs. Despite setbacks, she continued believing that music education is vital for a child’s education and development.

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In 2003, her persistence finally paid off: She officially launched a pilot project called the Harmony Program (HarmonyProgram.org).

After a year of the pilot project, which involved assembling low-income public school children for weekly music lessons, Anne saw firsthand the amazement and joy in each student’s eyes as they played instruments.

I truly feel called to dedicate myself to this, Anne thought as she took a leap of faith and quit her job to focus on her mission full-time.

And it paid off. In the past 20 years, the Harmony Program has grown from an initial class of 35 students at a single location to nearly 3,000 students at 20 different locations throughout New York City.

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Thanks to Anne’s efforts, thousands of children have benefited from free instruments, community-based music instruction, ensemble training and access to a variety of cultural experiences. The program has opened doors to opportunities that otherwise would have been inaccessible to them, with many past participants going on to attend prestigious programs at Juilliard, New York University, the Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles and Interlochen.

One of Anne’s students who discovered her potential through music as part of the program is Tamika. A former cello student, she’s now thriving in her dream role at Elektra Music, a record label under Warner Music Group.

Another is former violin student Christopher, who recently wrote to Anne to thank her: This fall, I’ll start my freshman year at Yale. You have changed me for the better, and without your support I wouldn’t be the son, brother, thinker or artist that I am today.

For Anne, the Harmony Program is about much more than teaching notes and scales. “It’s all about giving children the skills and helping them build confidence,” Anne says. “Kids learn that if they apply themselves to something challenging like music-making, they can succeed in other areas of life. Believing as strongly as I do in music’s powerful and positive influence on young people motivates me every day to keep advancing this joyful, musical mission!”