After a month of music across Eugene, the Music Education & Performing Artists Association’s tenth annual Kidz Rock Music & Arts Festival concluded Saturday, May 30. Starting at Whirled Pies and concluding at The Axe and Fiddle in nearby Cottage Grove, the festival platformed a variety of bands all featuring young musicians eager to prove their budding ability.

The festival largely sourced musicians from those involved with programs through MEPAA. The nonprofit provides one-on-one tutoring, full band coaching and other musical and artistic resources to people under 25 years old from their Music and Arts Center in west Eugene. MEPAA was founded in 2015 by Executive Director and self-proclaimed “Fairy Rock Mother” Matrisha Armitage as a way to facilitate the Kidz Rock and Grrrlz Rock music festivals and programs.

Armitage arrived in Eugene at the age of 14 in a last ditch effort for her family to escape homelessness. Once settled, she quickly found herself impassioned to help others overcome similarly traumatic situations. She formed a band, Bajuana Tea (now called Stereo Minds) with her eventual husband, Austin Armitage, at 16 years old. Her band began performing at Grrrlz Rock events, which brought young women to stages around Eugene. Once the founder of Grrrlz Rock decided to step down, Armitage took the reins.

She began coaching band practices in the basement of Ophelia’s Place, which offers therapy and other healing after-school activities for young women. In the five years they spent at the location, they established many of the core volunteers, musicians and programs that they are still involved with today.

One of those programs was a band called S.O.N.G. (Sirens of the Next Generation). The band cycles out members as students rotate through the program, with the current incarnation of the group recently taking the stage at The Axe and Fiddle. They performed a set of covers, including “Die Your Daughter” by Susannah Joffe and “GOSSIP” by Måneskin.

Each member was allowed to select one song to perform. Keyboardist Elizabeth Wood, 12, the youngest member of the group, has found the experience to be influential for both her musical development and sense of community.

“It makes us more disciplined,” Wood said. “If I just (had) my own band in my garage, I probably wouldn’t play music that often; I would just be talking to my friends. But here we can be friends and we can play music and we can get better.”

Kyla Holman, 15, who plays both lead guitar and bass in S.O.N.G., serves on MEPAA’s board as its youth board representative, making her privy to the nonprofit’s financials.

“It’s amazing how much the community supports us,” Holman said. “We get these huge grants and instrument donations and everything. That stuff is really amazing to be able to see.”

Orias, 11, who took to the stage to shred out solo renditions of classics like “Helter Skelter” by The Beatles and “Runnin’ with the Devil” by Van Halen, discovered MEPAA after attending the nearby Sean’s Music Study for music lessons. Soon after, he was invited to perform at their Whirled Pie show and eventually joined a band through Kidz Rock. Though the group has disbanded, Orias is thankful to have been able to perform as much as he has in his young age.

“Honestly, it’s just amazing to have little kids, like me when I was six, being able to go on stage and just figure out their dreams,” Orias said.

With 2026’s Kidz Rock Music & Arts Festival marking the tenth anniversary of MEPAA, Armitage is steadfast in ensuring the organization stays at a manageable size in order to keep contributing to deep community involvement.

“We don’t want to get too big,” Armitage said. “I think a big thing that we have noticed since the pandemic is people just growing too fast for what they could handle financially or hourly wise, so we have a real big core value of ‘deeper, not wider.’ We’d rather have (students that) come three days a week than more students. We want every student to feel really supported and valued and welcomed.”