Jasmyne Rudan, 31, From Piano Prodigy to Arts Powerhouse

Jasyme Rudan is the founder and CEO of Genesis Music and Arts, a nonprofit that provides a structured and disciplined environment for training in music, visual, and performing arts. While at the Austin P.O.W.E.R. 5K on Sept. 20, Rudan talked about what inspired her to start Genesis. 

My daughter’s name is Genesis. I named the organization after her about seven years ago. As a child, I was listed as a protégé for piano. I went to a public school, Beasley, on the South Side. While there, I learned how to play piano through a trial after-school workshop. They were so enthused about how I knew how to read music, they wrote the Chicago Board of Education and got approval for me to be pulled out of class and have private piano lessons. 

So, when I was in second grade, a piano professor traveled to me every day, pulled me out of class, and gave me a private piano lesson. When I was in sixth grade, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra picked me up, and I started opening shows for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 

In these programs, there was never anyone from my school, and no kids who look like me. And that always made me say, ‘When I get older, I’m going to open up a school, so all my friends can go to it.’ I went through all the training, studied at all the fine places, and had big performances when I was in high school. I went off to an HBCU for college, Fisk University, and when I returned to Chicago, I immediately opened up my studio and it just thrived. 


When the pandemic happened, I was able to expand virtually. I had a lot of friends who were getting their master’s degrees and Ph.D.’s, and they were out of work because they were professional giggers. So, I was able to bring them on board online, and we grew into a full art ecosystem. 
Today, we serve about 1,000 students on a week-to-week basis, and we’re growing. We’re inside private schools, charter public schools, public schools, alternative schools, and churches around the city of Chicago. 

We’ve worked with young people in Austin and North Lawndale. We also do parades and donate art. We’ve had art activation tables at different festivals out here. We’ll also come out and do identity projects with the kids. We teach kids about identity and empower them. So, in the windows of this building [she points to 5661 W. Chicago Ave., which West Side businessman Marseil Jackson plans to convert to a media center called Soul City Studios], these are drawings of students in our programs. We encourage them to be confident in who they are, what they look like, and how much power they have to be whoever they want to be.