Vocalist Amanda Ekery ('16) wants more women to join the jazz world.

The jazz studies major founded El Paso Jazz Girls in her hometown to help bring gender equality to the field, which has seen only seven girls make the Texas All-State Jazz Band in the last decade.

She wrote the curriculum and raised funds for the free summer clinic. She hopes to set up similar programs in Austin and Dallas.

Ekery also is involved in other projects, from writing songs with Girl Scouts to re-creating classic folk songs with audiences.

She wants to build communities through music, so she regularly performs in libraries, basements and other nontraditional places.

"I want to work, collaborate and share what I do with the people who I share space with," she says.