Zachary Humenik

Executive Director @The Travel Songs Foundation

Wilmington, DE, US

As Executive Director of The Travel Songs Foundation, I work to bring initiatives from creative ideas to successful projects. The Travel Songs Foundation advocates for music and musicians around the world with the goal of providing access to music creation, instrument production, and music education- In 2023 we partnered with Child, Inc. and The CAUSE to create the Sparrow Run Community Studio. This studio, funded by a Building Better Communities grant, provides young musicians, aged 12+ with the opportunity to receive free studio time in order to record music and podcasts. The studio is staffed by two part-time workers and also offers SEL courses and Videography training- In 2018 we released a documentary about The Sabino Luthier School, which focuses on our teacher and Luthier, Sabino Huaman, and teaches us about the stringed traditional instrument called the Charango. The film, titled \"Charango Man\" has since been screened at the Society for Applied Anthropology film festival, and has been incorporated into high education curricula at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Delaware- In 2017 we launched the Sabino Luthier School in Cusco, Peru. The Sabino Luthier School was a one-year intensive program that brought young musicians from Peru to learn how to build and craft handmade traditional instruments. By the end of the program, students knew how to build a Charango (a traditional Andean stringed instrument) by hand. The Travel Songs Foundation paid for the teacher\'s wages, all supplies, and student transportation for the full year- In 2015 we filmed an award-winning education documentary about music and culture in the Andes region of Peru.

University of Delaware

Bachelor's degree, Anthropology