Overview
Bigger Than Us Arts (BTU Arts) is a Sacramento-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit arts-education organization founded in 2015 by music educator and sousaphone player Benwar Shepard. BTU Arts brings live music, visual arts and performing arts experiences directly to schools and community spaces across the Sacramento region — with a particular focus on South Sacramento and underserved neighborhoods that lack regular access to professional arts programming. Its flagship Every School Tour delivers more than 40 school performances per year, and its Music on Our Streets initiative produces public-space concerts and second-line parades through the city. The organization is headquartered at 2733 Riverside Blvd, Sacramento, with a mailing address in Elk Grove. [1][2][3]
Founder
Benwar Shepard is BTU Arts' founder and executive director. He grew up in South Sacramento, attended Elk Grove Unified School District schools, and earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees in Music Education from the University of the Pacific Conservatory of Music. He has taught full-time in EGUSD for over six years, currently at Jackman Middle School. As a player his primary instrument is sousaphone (he also plays trombone), and outside BTU Arts he is the sousaphone player in Element Brass Band — described publicly as bandleader Byron Colborn's "right-hand man." Shepard has said his passion for taking arts education "to the heart of the community" led him to establish BTU Arts. He was profiled in Comstock's Magazine ("Art Exposed") in December 2017. [1][4]
Mission
BTU Arts' mission, as published on its California Arts Council grantee page: "to instill and support positive forms of expression in the community through the promotion of literacy in the arts." The organization frames the arts as "a tool for access, cultural expression, and connection," with explicit focus on schools and neighborhoods that don't see regular professional programming. [2]
Programs
Every School Tour
BTU Arts' signature outreach program. The organization performs at 40+ schools per year, prioritizing Title I and underserved campuses in EGUSD and the broader Sacramento region. Format is a live ensemble performance with educational components — instrument demonstrations, music history, and an explicit focus on African American contributions to American music. Schools book through info@btuarts.org. [1][3]
Music on Our Streets
Public-space music programming — neighborhood pop-up concerts, second-line parades, community gatherings. This is where BTU Arts' partnership with Element Brass Band is most visible: the brass band performs as part of BTU Arts' street programming, and the two organizations collaborate on city-wide events like the annual Juneteenth Art Walk with B Street Theatre, Celebration Arts and CapStage. [1][3]
"On the 2 and 4" — entrepreneurial workshop + jam session
A monthly free workshop and open jam session at BTU Arts' office, in collaboration with 25th Street Jazz. Held on the 2nd and 4th Monday of every month at 2733 Riverside Blvd. The workshop covers the business side of music — sustaining a working career, booking, rights, the basic financial mechanics of being a Sacramento musician — followed by an open jam. "Bring your axe, bring your ideas, and let's build together." [1]
BTU Arts Ensemble
BTU Arts maintains a performing ensemble led by Shepard that books for festivals, community events, civic celebrations, schools and private events. Repertoire spans jazz, blues, funk, soul, R&B, gospel and contemporary material, with educational framing on African American musical heritage. [2][3]
Major partnerships and events
Juneteenth Art Walk
Annual partnership with B Street Theatre, Celebration Arts, and CapStage. The 2025 walk (Thursday, June 19) opened at Celebration Arts (2727 B Street), processed behind Element Brass Band through midtown — stop at CapStage (2215 J Street) — and ended at The Sofia / B Street Theatre (2700 Capitol Ave) for a vendor fair. Free admission, designed to spotlight BIPOC artists in Sacramento. [3]
Black History Month programming
BTU Arts produces Black History Month performances in partnership with the Sacramento Public Library, including a documented February 12, 2022 program — "Bigger Than Us Arts Ensemble Live!" — that ran an interactive musical journey through African American contributions to American culture. [1]
Other regular partners
Recurring collaborators across programming include Sol Collective, Center for Musical Arts, the Scottish Rite Masonic Center, neighborhood associations, and Title I schools across Elk Grove Unified and Sacramento City Unified. [2]
Funding and structure
BTU Arts is a federally recognized 501(c)(3) nonprofit (EIN 82-3362916) and a listed grantee of the California Arts Council. It runs as a small staff (2-10 per LinkedIn) with the bulk of programming labor concentrated on Shepard and a network of contracted teaching artists and ensemble members. All donations are tax-deductible; school bookings and event performances are the other primary revenue paths. [2][5]
Why it matters for Sacramento music
BTU Arts addresses a specific structural gap in Sacramento: the schools and neighborhoods that don't get arts programming because of budgets, geography, or both. By bringing professional musicians directly into Title I schools (the Every School Tour) and into public space (Music on Our Streets), it inverts the usual access model — students don't have to travel to the arts; the arts come to them. The organization is also a connective tissue node in the Sacramento working-musician network: through Shepard's overlap with Element Brass Band and the "On the 2 and 4" workshops with 25th Street Jazz, BTU Arts both employs Sacramento musicians and supports their long-term sustainability as a profession. The model — educator-founded, partnership-based, focused on under-resourced communities — is an example of how grassroots arts nonprofits keep music infrastructure functional in a city where commercial venues alone wouldn't.
Sources
- Art Exposed: Benwar Shepard, Comstock's Magazine, December 6, 2017. https://www.comstocksmag.com/web-only/art-exposed-benwar-shepard
- California Arts Council — Bigger Than Us Arts grantee page. https://arts.ca.gov/grantee/bigger-than-us-arts/
- Bigger Than Us Arts, official website. https://btuarts.org/
- Bigger Than Us Arts Ensemble Live! — Black History Month, Sacramento Public Library YouTube, February 12, 2022.
- ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer — Bigger Than Us Arts (EIN 82-3362916). https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/