Kala Ambassador

After receiving her master’s degree in music education from Boston University, Mary Anderson started teaching PreK-5 classroom music. One year, she was gifted a classroom set of Kala ukuleles and started learning to play along with her students.

As a musician and performer, Mary fell in love with playing the ukulele, but she also loved that it opened up a new pathway to connect with her students and compose songs for them to both sing and play.

Now, Mary is the founder of My Music Starts Here, a music integration program for early childhood educators, and works to empower educators by connecting the latest research with classroom practice so that every teacher can harness the full power of music to support their young students and create a happy, healthy classroom environment.

Mary also produces and hosts the TV program, "Songs & Stories" for Virginia PBS as well as hosting the Youtube channel My Music with Mary, where you can catch her singing and playing what has now become her signature red ukulele.

Mary lives in Virginia with her husband, Mike, and their two children and envisions a world in which every child, regardless of their race, gender, location, school, childcare, abilities, or socioeconomic status, has the opportunity to learn, grow, and be inspired by the power of music.