Mission
Guardians of Sound and its Hip Hop Orchestra enrich life and lives through music.
Who We Are
We are a creative performing ensemble composed of youth, young professional and established professional musicians. Hip Hop Orchestra centers its art with acoustic instrumentalists, human voices, conscious lyrics, and current music making technologies. We create, perform, teach, record, and share original music.
Guardians of Sound’s Hip Hop Orchestra aims to inspire and nurture the creative and intellectual curiosity of today’s youth through music. The orchestra is composed of instrumentalists, singers, emcees and rappers who work with a variety of music genres, including hip hop, rock, popular, classical, and jazz. This approach not only enriches modern music-making but also builds a stronger, younger, and more diverse audience for musicians. By integrating traditional acoustic instruments with modern technology, Hip Hop Orchestra provides a method for learning, creating, performing, recording, and sharing music that resonates with today’s tech-savvy generation. It’s a fantastic way to keep the essence of acoustic sound alive while embracing the evolution of music.
Board of Directors
Michael Chapman
Founding President & Director
Duquesne University School of Music Director of Classical Guitar Ensemble / Adjunct Professor Guitar
James A. Brown
Director of Youth Development, Homewood-Brushton YMCA; YMCA Lighthouse Project
Linda Addlespurger
Director , Hope Academy Of Music and The Arts
Launcelot I. Brown Ph.D.
Duquesne University School of Education, Department Chair, Educational Foundations and Leadership
Annabelle Clippinger
Director of PittArts, University of Pittsburgh
Taliya Allen
The Pittsburgh Foundation Associate for the Arts