This Q&A is part of Observer’s Expert Insights series, where leaders and innovators distill years of experience into clear, practical takeaways and deliver clarity on the issues shaping their industries. At the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg (FMDG) Music School in New York City, executive director Dr. Rob Derke is advancing a vision that has redefined what accessibility in the arts can mean for over a century.
Founded in 1913, FMDG has built a legacy of excellence in music education for blind and visually impaired students, one grounded in specialized expertise, technological innovation and a deep commitment to community. As one of the only institutions in the nation to offer a fully accessible, lifelong music curriculum, FMDG serves as both a school and a cultural hub, where artistry and inclusion evolve side by side. Under Dr. Derke’s leadership, FMDG is transforming from a local institution into a global center of excellence in accessible music education. From pioneering braille transcription and adaptive technology programs to collaborating with universities and the Recording Academy on accessibility standards, the school is expanding its reach without losing sight of its purpose. Each initiative reflects a clear through line: accessibility isn’t a constraint on artistic potential—it’s a foundation for innovation. For Dr. Derke, FMDG’s mission-driven approach to growth is shaping the next generation of musicians, underscoring why accessibility must be understood not just as an ethical obligation, but as an essential driver of creativity, sustainability and economic value in the arts.
The Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg (FMDG) Music School has been a leader in accessibility in music for more than a century. What makes its model so unique—and so enduring?
For more than 100 years, the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School has stood as a beacon of possibility for blind and visually impaired musicians. This century-plus history of institutional knowledge and pedagogical refinement has created an organization that is irreplaceable.
What truly distinguishes FMDG is our comprehensive, lifespan approach. While most programs serve a single demographic, we welcome everyone from elementary-age children through senior citizens, creating a multigenerational community where families remain connected for decades. Students don’t just learn instruments; they gain technology proficiency, develop self-advocacy skills and acquire the confidence needed to navigate higher education and career pathways.
Our depth of expertise is fueled by staff with specialized training that typical music teachers rarely possess. We maintain in-house braille music transcription services, large print production and accessible technology training, creating a learning ecosystem that serves students, universities and performance institutions nationwide. Our braille music library, second only to the Library of Congress collection, is now housed at the New York Public Library for public access.
You’ve spoken about formalizing FMDG’s role as a global resource. What does building a “center of excellence” in accessible music education actually look like in practice?
FMDG’s transformation from local institution to global center of excellence requires a phased approach. Our recent designation as a Recording Academy Accessibility + Disability (RAA+D) Community Partner will spur workshops, panels and events reaching a global audience. Our higher education initiative, supported by the Lavelle Fund and National Endowment for the Arts, leads a consortium of the nation’s top conservatories to design the sector’s first guidelines ensuring blind and visually impaired students receive the same opportunities as their sighted peers.
We’re building relationships with agencies nationwide to reach thousands of students with little to no access to comprehensive, accessible music education through online group classes, private lessons, courses in theory and appreciation and on-site workshops. We’re also aiming to engage with Teachers of the Visually Impaired (TVI) programs so future preK-12 teachers have tools to bring accessible music education into classrooms.
Looking ahead, we’re excited about partnering with technology companies to advance accessible music tools and adaptive instruments. However, these opportunities will never dilute our primary focus on NYC area students in the classrooms and rehearsal studios that produce some of the finest musicians heard on world-renowned stages.
Many niche institutions struggle with scaling without diluting their mission. How are you thinking about expanding FMDG’s reach while preserving its deep focus?
Protecting FMDG’s mission while scaling depends on building mission integrity into every organizational system. We focus exclusively on blind and visually impaired learners, maintain an accessibility-first approach with individualized instruction and place student dignity at the center. These principles can never be compromised for growth or revenue.
The members of our board, staff and faculty with lived experience of vision loss have real decision-making authority. We consult them on all policy changes from the ideation stage, and we’re willing to walk away from opportunities that don’t align with our mission. We only expand where documented needs exist, and partnerships must meet our high ethical standards. Members of our community have been part of FMDG for decades, so any signal of mission drift will be heard loud and clear.
Whether in the arts, education or beyond, what lessons could other specialized organizations take from FMDG’s approach to growth?
FMDG occupies a unique position: our funders know exactly why they’re critical to our success. Typical arts organizations must identify what might motivate each donor—older music? New music? Specific artists? With FMDG, donors immediately understand how their support impacts our community members.
Organizations face constant pressure to broaden scope for more funding. Yet our history of exclusively serving musicians with vision loss has created irreplaceable expertise that generalists cannot match. Deep specialization builds community trust, measurable outcomes, and a defensible market position, making our narrow focus a superpower, not a limitation. This allows us to direct creativity and energy toward growth that reinforces our ecosystem rather than depleting it. Mission-driven scale means becoming more of what we are, not less.
There’s often a notion that accessibility is purely a moral imperative, rather than a business one. What do funders and policymakers miss about the ROI of accessibility in arts and culture?
When accessibility is dismissed as charity or compliance, funders and policymakers might miss the economic returns that ripple far beyond the disability community.
The global disability community represents 1.3 billion people controlling $13 trillion in disposable income. In the United States, 61 million disabled adults, plus families and friends, create a 150-million-person market with $490 billion in annual disposable spending. Yet most arts organizations capture less than 5 percent of this market—not because disabled people don’t want cultural experiences, but because those experiences remain inaccessible. The disability community’s attendance at performing arts events is 14 percentage points lower than the 37.3 percent overall attendance rate, despite having comparable disposable income.
Research shows the disability community exhibits up to 4 times higher brand loyalty than general consumers, and businesses championing disability inclusion generate up to 30 percent higher profit margins. Accessibility efforts also drive innovation for all. Over half of Americans use subtitles regularly, benefiting from captioning in loud environments, for language learning or hands-free operation.
The most distressing consequence of inaccessibility is increased social isolation. The mortality risk of social isolation costs the healthcare system $6.7 billion annually. Nearly 50 percent of adults with visual impairments experience moderate or severe loneliness, with socially isolated individuals incurring 50 percent higher healthcare costs. Arts education becomes preventive healthcare, potentially reducing downstream costs substantially.
What are the most persuasive metrics or outcomes you’ve seen when it comes to demonstrating the value of inclusive programming?
The most persuasive outcomes are what we see in students’ and families’ faces as they take the stage with confidence and musical artistry. Students remain for decades. Parents of former students still volunteer because of community kinship. I’m only the seventh Executive Director in 112 years, and many funders have been our biggest supporters for decades.
In business metrics, our students achieve approximately 70 percent employment, double the 36 percent baseline for visually impaired adults. If each employed graduate generates $50,000 annually in earned income versus $18,000 in disability benefits, it creates a net economic gain of $32,000 per person per year, or $960,000 over a 30-year career.
Government funders value payback calculations. FMDG students attend higher education at twice the average rate of students who are blind. If comprehensive training costs $60,000 total over four years and graduates earn $50,000 annually, they generate $29,000 in annual public returns. With $18,000 eliminated from disability benefits, $8,000 in tax revenue and $3,000 in reduced healthcare costs, the investment breaks even in just 2.07 years.
How do accessible arts programs strengthen participation as well as institutional sustainability and stakeholder buy-in?
These outcomes form a reinforcing ecosystem. Stakeholders stay engaged longer and become vocal advocates because accessible organizations inspire fierce loyalty, creating predictable recurring revenue and reducing donor acquisition costs. Our 85 percent to 90 percent year-to-year student retention reflects both programmatic success and financial sustainability.
Organizations known for inclusive practices attract exceptional staff who stay longer and reduce turnover costs. Staff trained in accessibility develop sophisticated problem-solving skills that make the entire organization more adaptable. This builds trust, which leads to creative problem-solving and novel stakeholder coalitions that exponentially increase our resources, networks and advocacy.
When we faced facility threats after parting ways with Lighthouse, staff members, board members and accessibility-focused organizations mobilized stakeholders who brought genuine community power and critical donor support. The ecosystem’s strength was a determining factor in FMDG’s rise to even greater heights after becoming an independent school.
Where do you see the biggest gaps in accessibility in arts education today, and how can institutions realistically begin to close them?
The most profound gap is in specialized pedagogical knowledge. Music teachers often receive little to no training in teaching students with vision loss during pre-service education. I’m continually amazed at how many musicians are surprised to learn about braille music. Although our braille transcription services are partially funded by several donors, braille music and large print materials remain prohibitively expensive and difficult to access for many students around the country. Most publishers don’t provide accessible formats, forcing teachers and students to pay transcription costs or forgo repertoire entirely. This creates educational inequality where students with disabilities access a fraction of the musical canon available to their sighted peers.
The biggest challenge in closing these gaps occurs when taking geography into account because thousands of K-12 students across the country simply have no access to the type of accessible music education that FMDG provides. Our online programming and collaborations with state agencies will certainly address these opportunity gaps, provided that donors recognize how we are uniquely positioned to address this critical need.
The fundamental gap is universal design thinking, whereas accessibility must be embedded from inception and not added retroactively. Many institutions approach accessibility as ad hoc accommodations, retrofitting services after designing programs for non-disabled students. This creates parallel systems where disabled students receive “modified” experiences marked as lesser. Institutions can shift this by requiring accessibility review at the program design stage. When developing new curricula, ensemble configurations or performance opportunities and venues, consider how blind or low vision students can fully participate before launching, not after someone requests an accommodation.
Are there policy shifts you believe would accelerate accessibility in arts and education at scale?
Accreditation agencies should ensure all teacher certification programs include disability pedagogy and accessible instruction as core competencies. The Higher Education Opportunity Act should mandate that federally funded institutions demonstrate accessibility integration across teacher preparation programs. This would transform the field from the ground up while incurring minimal cost.
On the state level, vision-related agencies should recognize arts education as legitimate vocational goals eligible for full funding, similar to STEM fields. Arts and culture industries recently grew at twice the rate of the U.S. economy, adding $1.2 trillion and representing 4.2 percent of GDP. The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act should explicitly include arts careers in competitive integrated employment definitions, unlocking millions in existing funding without new appropriations.
However, policies must recognize the unique trajectory of people in the arts. Many artists experience seasonal work or financial ebbs and flows from one year to the next. Policymakers should recalculate multi-year benefits cliffs and asset limits that penalize disabled individuals for pursuing arts careers with variable income. When benefits loss outpaces income gain, it creates strong disincentives for career advancement.
You bring three decades of experience as a musician, educator and nonprofit leader. How does that background shape your vision for FMDG’s next chapter?
My vision emerges from a life spent navigating borders and perspectives. I began as a musician deeply rooted in jazz tradition, but growing up in NYC allowed me to perform across genres, with gigs at the Apollo, CBGBs, Carnegie Hall, Nuyorican Poets Café, the Palladium and many others. Extensive international travel that ranges from Soviet-era East Germany to the Middle East and Asia, combined with designing music education programs in dozens of schools across the country, taught me that holding multiple perspectives simultaneously offers clarity rather than confusion.
We’re not simply teaching blind students to participate in a sighted world’s music culture. We’re building an institution that recognizes the disability perspective as generative. My trajectory from jazz clubs to organizational leadership matters because FMDG’s growth strategy requires leadership that can simultaneously speak to artists about aesthetic excellence, to funders about ROI and sustainability, to policymakers about systemic change, to the disability community about authentic representation and to educators about pedagogical rigor.
We exist because institutional systems have excluded people who are blind or visually impaired from full cultural participation. We’re proving that exclusion was never about capability; it was about design. Our students’ lived experience of musicianship already contradicts dominant narratives about disability as limitation. My vision for FMDG’s next chapter is about making this counter-narrative undeniable at scale.
What challenges keep you up at night as you work to expand the school’s impact? Looking ahead, what does success look like for FMDG?
Our organization requires exceptional educators who possess musical expertise, specialized vision loss pedagogy skills and genuine disability justice values. As we scale, maintaining this quality bar presents challenges, but we’re mitigating them by building relationships with higher education institutions where we can share expertise with teachers preparing to enter the field.
We must also navigate regional variation in funding policies, threading the needle to ensure our programming aligns with agency requirements and regional foundation priorities. Individual donor support is critical, allowing us to meet student needs as opportunities arise.
Success means multiple things. For students and teaching, it means making ableist narratives about limitation impossible to sustain. Practically, it includes securing a new home for our school in NYC, where we can thrive while cementing our national presence. Personally, it means building an institution so embedded with distinctive values that it survives well into another century. Organizationally, success is when other specialized organizations study FMDG’s scaling approach to replicate in their domains, demonstrating that mission and growth aren’t contradictory.
For leaders outside of the arts, what’s one takeaway they can apply from FMDG’s journey about scaling impact without losing sight of mission?
FMDG’s century of impact comes from refusing to dilute our focus of exclusively serving musicians of any age and proficiency level who are blind and visually impaired. This has created irreplaceable depth that generalists cannot match. Counterintuitively, narrowing scope increases impact. Deep specialization builds community trust, measurable outcomes and defensible market position that gives us a competitive advantage. The key to growth is multiplying expertise, not just services. Serve your community so extraordinarily well that the possibilities you’ve proven become undeniable.
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
