The ones coming up behind
Bruce Gallipani takes kids from eight to eighteen, puts them in real bands, and puts those bands on a real stage in front of real people about a dozen times a year. That is the whole idea, and it works.
Eddie sits on the Rockit Live Foundation board alongside Steven and Maureen Van Zandt — the same two people who put the Rascals back on a Broadway stage in 2013.
In April 2024 the academy’s students played “A Celebration of Garfield’s Brigati Brothers” at the Hackensack Performing Arts Center. Kids from the same county playing the songs, with the man who wrote them in the room.
In their words: the Rockit Live Foundation “inspires through music instruction and opportunities to perform live along with professional artists and mentors.”
It is the part of this story that is still being written, which is the reason it has a page rather than a footnote.
Eddie Brigati with Rockit Academy students, backstage at the Cutting Room.
EBDB Music Corp · Photo: Joe Russo · Eddie’s personal collection
Bruce Gallipani and Eddie Brigati.
EBDB Music Corp · Eddie’s personal collection
- Founded by
- Bruce Gallipani
- Ages
- 8 to 18
- Concerts
- A dozen a year
- Board
- Eddie Brigati · Steven Van Zandt · Maureen Van Zandt
The benefit shirt
There is one benefit item, and it is a shirt. Everything it takes will go to the Rockit Live Foundation apart from the card processor’s fee — nothing is kept. Eddie sits on its board, and it puts kids from eight to eighteen into real bands, on a real stage, in front of real people about a dozen times a year.
Nothing else in the store is sold for the foundation.
Rockit Live Foundation
A New Jersey nonprofit running year-round music education and live performance programmes for young musicians.