Founded by the Tetra String Quartet, Play Out! is a musical service initiative that brings free performances and educational opportunities to underserved communities in Arizona. Tetra's live concerts and workshops serve as an opening to create lasting relationships with members of the community and share the transformative power of music. By providing this platform for conversation and connection, Play Out! champions the belief that access to the arts is an essential human right.
Azure Family Concerts
Presented by the Tetra String Quartet, Azure Family Concerts are free, one-hour, sensory-friendly performances designed for people of all ages with autism, developmental disabilities, sensory processing differences, and physical disabilities, along with their families and caregivers. Traditional concert settings can be challenging for audience members who communicate, regulate, or engage through vocalizations, movement, stimming, or other forms of participation. Azure concerts joyfully and intentionally welcome these behaviors, creating a warm, judgment-free space where every audience member can relax, participate, and feel that they truly belong. Family members and caregivers of all ages are encouraged to join in the fun!
Move freely. Express yourself. Be you.
Concerts are also live-streamed on Tetra String Quartet's Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/tetrastringquartet
This project is partially funded by the City of Tempe Community Arts Grant.
Maricopa Juvenile Detention Centers
In 2015, Tetra started performing free programs twice a year for young people at the Mesa and Phoenix Detention Centers. They designed assembly programs based on the “Kids at Hope” curriculum (a program intended to reverse the "kids at risk" paradigm, which focuses on a child's potential negative behavior, by instead drawing attention to a child's talents and potential for success and their value to society). Tetra uses chamber music as a vehicle to teach students how to improve their verbal and physical communication skills, how to be aware of their role in their family/school/community, how to be creative and imaginative, and how to be more personally responsible for their actions.
Play Out! in Action
Watch our TedxArrowheadRanch talk, "Instrumenting Change!"