Community outreach has always been a cornerstone of business for Nick Rail.
Nick served for six years on the board of the Public Education Foundation, on the boards of the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony and Camerata Pacifica, and is currently an ex officio board member of the Prime Time Band which he helped found in 1995 along with JB Vander Ark and George Pendergast.
In 1988, having grown disenchanted with the lack of good musical instrument inventory across the board in the Santa Barbara schools, he formed the Nick Rail Music Trust Fund under the auspices of the Public Education Foundation. The non-profit foundation has raised and donated over $100,000.00 worth of new band and orchestral instruments to the District in the past twenty years, the most recent donations being new bassoons to Santa Barbara Junior High and High Schools.
In 1989 Nick started a Summer Band Camp for area elementary and junior high school students when the District discontinued all of their summer music classes.
2008 marked the nineteenth year of the popular camp, which Nick Rail continues to subsidize.
For many years the company has provided band and orchestral instruments at no charge for use in the methods classes at UCLA, USC and Cal State Northridge, where the students who will be tomorrow’s band directors are studying for their degrees.
For more than twenty years Nick sponsored the Santa Barbara Symphony Music Van, donating all the instruments and repairing them as well as training the docents and providing all the supplies.
In 2006 Nick and Mary Jane Cooper (a PTB percussionist) were recipients of the Local Heroes Award presented by the Santa Barbara Independent. The following is the citation from the news article:
Begun in 1978 by the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Music Van visits grade schools in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties to demonstrate orchestral instruments. Third-graders learn about strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion, and then they get to hold and play the instruments. For a lot of these children, this is the only time they will ever toot a clarinet, pound a tympani, or try to get their chin settled into a violin and give it a stroke with a bow. For some children, the Music Van’s visit will be the beginning of a vital connection to music, for others it will open the door to a passionate interest, and for a special few it will become that cherished first experience that leads to a musical career. With state funding for the arts in schools at such low levels, this program fills a need that would otherwise probably go unmet.
It takes more than just the van, generously donated by Marilynn Sullivan, or the instruments, which have been provided, maintained, and replaced when necessary by Nick Rail since 1990, for the Music Van to bring the magic of the orchestra to an average of 42 schools and more than 2,000 children every year — it takes people, typically Nick Rail to handle the instruments, docent Mary Jane Cooper to do the driving and the talking, and a professional musician to make the magic of music real (often this is Kirsten Monke, principal violist in the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra).
For their direction and leadership of this worthy, creative, and
vibrant service to the community, we recognize at this time Nick
Rail and Mary Jane Cooper. Without their incredible dedication and
persistence, this van would not be rocking.
Nick served for six years on the board of the Public Education Foundation, on the boards of the Santa Barbara Youth Symphony and Camerata Pacifica, and is currently an ex officio board member of the Prime Time Band which he helped found in 1995 along with JB Vander Ark and George Pendergast.
In 1988, having grown disenchanted with the lack of good musical instrument inventory across the board in the Santa Barbara schools, he formed the Nick Rail Music Trust Fund under the auspices of the Public Education Foundation. The non-profit foundation has raised and donated over $100,000.00 worth of new band and orchestral instruments to the District in the past twenty years, the most recent donations being new bassoons to Santa Barbara Junior High and High Schools.
In 1989 Nick started a Summer Band Camp for area elementary and junior high school students when the District discontinued all of their summer music classes.
2008 marked the nineteenth year of the popular camp, which Nick Rail continues to subsidize.
For many years the company has provided band and orchestral instruments at no charge for use in the methods classes at UCLA, USC and Cal State Northridge, where the students who will be tomorrow’s band directors are studying for their degrees.
For more than twenty years Nick sponsored the Santa Barbara Symphony Music Van, donating all the instruments and repairing them as well as training the docents and providing all the supplies.
In 2006 Nick and Mary Jane Cooper (a PTB percussionist) were recipients of the Local Heroes Award presented by the Santa Barbara Independent. The following is the citation from the news article:
Begun in 1978 by the Santa Barbara Symphony, the Music Van visits grade schools in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties to demonstrate orchestral instruments. Third-graders learn about strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion, and then they get to hold and play the instruments. For a lot of these children, this is the only time they will ever toot a clarinet, pound a tympani, or try to get their chin settled into a violin and give it a stroke with a bow. For some children, the Music Van’s visit will be the beginning of a vital connection to music, for others it will open the door to a passionate interest, and for a special few it will become that cherished first experience that leads to a musical career. With state funding for the arts in schools at such low levels, this program fills a need that would otherwise probably go unmet.
It takes more than just the van, generously donated by Marilynn Sullivan, or the instruments, which have been provided, maintained, and replaced when necessary by Nick Rail since 1990, for the Music Van to bring the magic of the orchestra to an average of 42 schools and more than 2,000 children every year — it takes people, typically Nick Rail to handle the instruments, docent Mary Jane Cooper to do the driving and the talking, and a professional musician to make the magic of music real (often this is Kirsten Monke, principal violist in the Santa Barbara Chamber Orchestra).
For their direction and leadership of this worthy, creative, and
vibrant service to the community, we recognize at this time Nick
Rail and Mary Jane Cooper. Without their incredible dedication and
persistence, this van would not be rocking.