We were lucky to catch up with William Allen recently and have shared our conversation below.

William, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

Graduating from an HBCU, Southern University, in Baton Rouge Louisiana, I’ve learned with applying for jobs for the band director positions, I didn’t realize that what I’ve learned from my university is not taught in all schools. So I came up with an idea to be able to exposer and experience for the youth with my non profit to know that the other styles of music, culturally base, to help create student experience and awareness of the urban performing arts spectrum.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I started playing the trumpet in the sixth grade and I didn’t realize at that moment that would change my life forever. All through middle school and high school I had the privilege to get the exposure of different competitions, traveling and also exposed to different type of colleges that did different styles of music. I received a BAND scholarship to Southern University A&M in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to play for the marching band known as “The Human Jukebox”. Through my collegiate years, I’ve learned to not only improve my musicianship, but also understand the Band Director side of things. Once I graduated from Southern University, I taught for three years in Louisiana, and then ventured to Texas back home. While applying for jobs I noticed that certain school districts were looking for the traditional style of marching band. At that time I thought it was only with the Band Director can bring to the school, but it was only for the standard style of Texas. At that point it made me feel as if everything I have learned and grew up on, was not correct and not to be able to land a job. Going to interviews, the fine arts directors were given questions about, what college I went to and what can I bring to the school and at the end I would always get we will contact you later and then get it and email it saying that we’re going to move on with someone else. From that moment, I knew I had to change the outlook on HBCU culture in schools, so I came up with my nonprofit organization, The Texas Supremacy of Music and Arts Conservatory to come in as an option for students to be able to gain the exposer and experience of the HBCU urban performing arts.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

The initial capital I needed for my business was through my trumpet performances. As a full-time Band Director in a part-time musician, I would play at church’s birthday parties ceremonies all to raise funds for my nonprofit organization.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

There were a lot of times that I did want to give up because the people that I thought that would support me didn’t really support me in at that pivotal moment, I had to understand that I have to have a foundation source to go through it all. I needed to put more faith in God to serve our people to do more things for the people that I serve and so at that point I had to remain focus and not look for support from others but just support from God to make things happen for the students.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.txsmac.org
• Instagram: Da_Konductor1
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/tsmac01
• Linkedin: William D. Allen M.Ed
• Twitter: Texas_arts
• Youtube: The Texas Supremacy of Music & Arts Conservation

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