ABOUT MERGE
Giving You the Tools You Need to put Humanality Back into Life
hu-ma-nal-i-ty (n): [hyou-muh-nal-i-tee]
1. The quality of being a person
2. The essential character of a person
3. The sum total of the physical, mental, emotional, and social characteristics of an individual
4. That which is common in each of us
All About Merge: A Life Story
What makes Merge visionary and Creative Director Bill Rossi an expert in the fields of Alternative Education, Arts Mentoring, and Arts in Recovery - someone who can guide others to put humanality back into life?
Bill Rossi is a ‘natural expert’ in these fields because he’s been there – he swam in those waters, came close to drowning, and taught himself to swim.
The Back Story
As a child struggling to grow up in a family with mental illness, Bill found no respite at school because his teachers couldn’t support his creative way of learning. Worse yet, they convinced him that the problem was with him, and over time he increasingly battled with depression.
Music became the place he went to for relief - he also self-educated at the city library after school, reading every philosopher and thinker he could find. And despite being told by high school counselors that he wasn't college material, he did gain admission to Berklee College of Music, and in 1971 graduated with a degree in Composition and Arrangement. He taught piano and theory on staff there for two years, and then taught and played professionally in a variety of venues and genres in Miami, Cincinnati, and Seattle.
Because he continued to experience significant depression, however, he increasingly used drugs and alcohol; by the time he turned 30 it became clear that he needed to turn a corner in his life.
Turning the Corner
He decided to do this in two steps: live a healthy lifestyle, and re-learn music. Relearn it, because he’d been taught music the same way he’d been taught academics – just as he’d been given information so he could emulate others, he’d been given musical technique so he could “sound like” someone else. Learning in this way had given him little sense of who he was, little strength to find the personal pathways that were right for him.
So for the next five years, working in cabinet making and fine wood turning, he re-learned the music – he took it apart and went back to its roots (which, in the case of Jazz, is the Blues) so he could experience it from a very personal place and develop it (and himself, in the process) from there.
In 1985 he married and relocated to Seattle, where he opened a private studio teaching piano and rhythm section workshops, also teaching as adjunct faculty at Shoreline Community College. He taught from a very different perspective because he understood what had been missing: traditional education, while good at academic and skill development, lacks the emotional and psychological development necessary to make it personally relevant. 
Actions Speak Loudest!
His accomplishments since that time speak to the efficacy of his approach and demonstrate our ability as human beings to rise above circumstance and succeed if we’re able to find the personal pathways that are right for us.
In 1994, Bill established Youth Advancement through Music & Art (YATMA, a nonprofit) to deliver arts mentoring to challenged youth, which ultimately thrived and served over 3,000 youth. He received substantial foundation support, including national grants, and partnered with such organizations as Harborview Medical Center, the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle Children’s Home, Langston Hughes Center, and S.W. Youth & Family Services.
In 2000, Bill replicated YATMA under contract with Parsons Child & Family Center in Albany, NY, a therapeutic treatment facility with a focus on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) where YATMA services were designated as a component of the clients’ Therapeutic Treatment Plan.
In 2004 Bill received a substantial grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to replicate the program within St. Anne Institute, Albany, NY, a residential treatment facility for adjudicated girls. YATMA changed its name to EMTAH (Educational Mentoring through the Arts & Humanities).
In 2006, Bill took a sabbatical to create the Merge System for Creative Education. This included authoring and publishing one book, co-authoring two books of curricula, and authoring evaluation software based on his previous work with social scientists, psychologists, and other artist educators. Bill and his wife Mary-Helen founded Merge Education to disseminate these materials.
In 2008, Merge relocated to West Chester, PA to implement a model program –a live 
demonstration of the Rossi Creative Approach. This model program received the 2011 Recovery Stars Award and receives multi-year funding from the Chester County Department of Human Services.
Merge now disseminates the complete system of books, curricula, evaluation software, and consultation with the intention of making the journey a little easier for others who just need the empowerment, guidance, and support to find their way through life.
Experience the Difference!
In-the-Box: Stale, lacking oxygen, cramped, boring, lifeless. Leads to high drop-out and low graduation rates and self-destructive behavior. Most often found in current educational practices.
Out-of-the-Box: Alive, growing, full of feeling, soulful, worth doing. Leads to improved relationships, community involvement, and desire to take care of oneself. Found in creative initiatives and in Venturing Together: Empowering Students to Succeed.
How Merge Brings Creativity to Alternative Education
and Mentoring
Many students become disengaged from life because they are not engaged, stimulated, or motivated (read Austen Goodman’s post on creative mentoring for an excellent example of this). Arts mentoring can redress many of the challenges our society is experiencing today.
For more on how Merge approaches alternative education, please visit our Mentoring page.
How Merge Implements the Arts in Recovery
Merge works with peer support centers and other health resource organizations to implement Arts in Recovery mentoring programs that enhance community inclusion and provide "a positive pathway to recovery".
One initiative is now underway in Chester County, PA, where Merge is working with Horizon House staff and consumers to develop a program that includes weekly classes in visual arts and music with monthly performance events.
For more on how Merge is providing leadership in the field of mentoring in Arts in Recovery, please visit Arts in Recovery.
Ready to Be More Creative?
Get Venturing Together: Empowering Students to Succeed and start today!
Artwork on Site: The artwork on our site is by artists Robert Horton (Seattle, WA) and Paris London (West Chester, PA). Contact us if you're interested in exploring their art.
