Our School
Aurora Institute for the Arts is an educational space that provides music and arts education to young students and adults.
Our mission is to promote and stimulate human development through different art forms while building strong community relationships. We strive to create a place where people of all skill levels and ages can come and experience a community built around the arts and the values of humility, creativity, compassion and excellence.
Our Institute mission and values are highly influenced by the Suzuki philosophy, a music education approach created by the Japanese violinist and educator, Shinichi Suzuki.
At our institute, we welcome and foster diversity and inclusion as a key element for learning and growing.
We have faculty and students from different backgrounds, nationalities, ethnicities and we enjoy learning from our differences and cultures!
Our Directors
Anna Herrera and Randy Manning are founders and co-directors of the Aurora Institute for the Arts since 2021. They are professional musicians and educators with a big passion for teaching and a strong belief that arts education can shape the future of our society.
They believe that the arts are best enjoyed together, as a community. Their fondest memories and experiences with music and art have all been in the company of friends and colleagues, leaving long-lasting relationships and friendships that they will treasure forever.
Community is a crucial component that the Aurora Institute for the Arts brings to the Fox Valley.
Anna and Randy met while studying at Louisiana State University and were married in 2019.
“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again.
And what do we teach our children?
We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France.
When will we also teach them what they are?
We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are?
You are a marvel. You are unique.
In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you.
Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move.
You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven.
You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel.
And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel?
You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children.”
- Pablo Casals
