Inspiring youth and enriching community through the power of classical music.

MISSION

Inspiring youth and enriching community through the power of classical music.

The Mid-America Performing Arts Alliance removes barriers to arts education by collaborating with local schools, businesses, and community organizations to bring high-quality classical music to people who would not otherwise have access to it. Our string program is free to every child who participates, and our Lawrence concert season is free to the public.

Classical music has a reputation for being expensive, formal, and not for everyone. Everything MAPAA does is built to contradict that. We bring acclaimed guest artists together with professional regional musicians who teach, mentor, and perform alongside aspiring young Midwestern artists, and we make the results available across the greater Kansas City region and Northeast Kansas.

Our work rests on three pillars: Performance, Education, and Community Collaboration.

P E R F O R M A N C E

MAPAA presents an eight-concert professional season pairing internationally recognized guest artists with the finest regional musicians — at the Spencer Museum of Art, the Lawrence Arts Center, South Park, and other community venues in Lawrence, and through the Benny & Edith Lee Concert Series in Kansas City. Every concert in our Lawrence season is free.

At the center of the season is Opera in an Hour, a five-year rotation of accessible full-orchestra opera productions at the Lawrence Arts Center. Carmen opened the series in 2026 to enthusiastic audiences. The Barber of Seville follows in spring 2027. Each production is staged with a live pit orchestra of regional professionals and runs about an hour — long enough to be the real thing, short enough for a first-time operagoer or a restless nine-year-old.

E D U C A T I O N

MAPAA teaches across the life span, from third graders holding a violin for the first time to adult amateurs returning to chamber music after decades away.

Inspiring Strings Project · Grades 3–5 Free group instruction, instruments, accessories, sheet music, and public performance opportunities for sixty children at Title I partner sites — Woodlawn Elementary (fourth year) and New York Elementary (third year) in Lawrence, and Operation Breakthrough in Kansas City, which began in spring 2026. Families pay nothing. Instruction is delivered weekly by professional teaching artists compensated at professional rates.

Youth Orchestra Festival · Middle school through collegiate An annual five-day festival at the UMKC Conservatory serving eighty student musicians from across the region, working on chamber music and standard orchestral repertoire under nationally recognized faculty.

Adult Chamber Music Workshop · Adults An annual summer intensive at St. Andrews in Brookside, giving roughly thirty adult amateur and professional musicians a joyful, high-quality chamber music experience.

Visiting Artist Masterclass Series · Collegiate Direct instruction with visiting faculty, and the professional connections that come with it.

MAPAA also presents occasional Instrumental Petting Zoo events for K–2 students, and runs a Youth Competition on a three-year cycle rotating strings, winds and brass, and piano. The competition is currently on planned hiatus and returns in the 2028–29 season.

C O M M U N I T Y C O L L A B O R A T I O N

Classical music has a reputation for being expensive, formal, and not for everyone. Everything MAPAA does is built to contradict that.

Our Lawrence concerts are free. Our string program costs participating families nothing — not tuition, not an instrument rental, not sheet music. Our opera productions run an hour and welcome an audience that has never been to one. We put world-class visiting artists on stage beside regional musicians, and we bring elementary students into a high school orchestra room to play alongside teenagers.

That work depends on partners: Lawrence Public Schools, where our partnership is expanding; Operation Breakthrough in Kansas City; and the venues and hosts who make the music possible — the Spencer Museum of Art, the Lawrence Arts Center, the UMKC Conservatory, St. Andrews in Brookside, and Benny and Edith Lee, whose home is our Kansas City concert home.

MAPAA Directors

A Kansas native, Jesse Henkensiefken is a cellist, conductor, and arts advocate dedicated to community building through classical music education. Equally at home on the podium and the concert stage, he is deeply committed to expanding access to high-quality musical experiences for underserved youth and to fostering collaboration, opportunity, and inclusive performance spaces for all. As Director of Choral Arts at Bishop Seabury Academy and Executive Director of the Mid-America Performing Arts Alliance, he advances a shared mission of creating accessible, inclusive programming for students and communities throughout Lawrence, Kansas, and the greater Kansas City metro area.
Henkensiefken completed his higher education at the University of Kansas, earning a Bachelor of Music, Master of Music, and Doctor of Musical Arts in Cello Performance. He also studied at the Park University International Center for Music, where he received a Certificate in Music, and earned a second Master of Music in Symphonic and Opera Conducting from the Manhattan School of Music in New York City. In the summer of 2015, he studied at the Tchaikovsky State Moscow Conservatory under Anatoly Levin. His additional mentors include George Manahan, David Gilbert, Nikolai Uljanov, Paul Vermel, Leonard Slatkin, and Kurt Masur.
In 2022, Henkensiefken returned to the University of Kansas as Director of Sacred Music at the St. Lawrence Catholic Center. He previously served as Program Manager for Harmony Project KC, following his tenure as Director of Orchestras and String Studies at Kansas Wesleyan University, where he also held positions as Assistant Conductor and Principal Cellist of the Salina Symphony. His additional conducting credits include Assistant Conductor of the Manhattan School of Music Contemporary Opera Ensemble and Music Director of the Ars Viva Chamber Orchestra.
As a performer, Henkensiefken has concertized throughout Asia, Latin America, and the United States, collaborating with artists such as Clive Greensmith, Steven Doane, Zlatomir Fung, Paul Neubauer, Stephanie Chase, Christina Bouey, Tatiana Tessman, and Mark O’Connor. A Sorbel Award winner at the Mu Phi Epsilon International Music Competition, he has served as principal cellist with ensembles including Ensemble du Monde (NYC), Empire State Sinfonia (Brooklyn), Kansas City Philharmonia, and the Salina Symphony, and appeared as a substitute cellist with the New World Symphony.
His primary cello teachers include Edward Laut and Martin Story, and he has additionally worked with Yo-Yo Ma, Eric Rosenblith, Zuill Bailey, Peter Kondrashin, and members of the Kronos, Ying, Da Vinci, and Turtle Island String Quartets.

Tatiana Tessman has performed as soloist with orchestras around the world, including the World Symphony in Cincinnati, Shreveport Symphony, Bach’s Festival Orchestra, Manhattan School of Music Philharmonia, Uruguay Philharmonic Symphony, Panama Philharmonic Symphony, Korea W. Philharmonic the Russian Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, upon a personal invitation from Maestro Mstislav Rostropovich.
On the competition front, Tessman has seen overwhelming success, claiming first prizes at the Glenn Gould International Piano Competition in Ostra (Italy), Santorini International Piano Competition (Greece), 55th Wideman International Piano Competition, the Missouri International Piano Competition and the 50th Cincinnati World Piano Competition, in addition to multiple other awards at the Panama International Piano Competition, the Florida International Piano competition and the Eisenberg-Fried Manhattan School of Music Concerto Competition in New York. Fueled by her victories on the international competition circuit, Tessman’s reputation as an outstanding pianist of exceptional value expanded rapidly, leading to engagements throughout Russia, Europe, Latin America, Cuba, Asia, and the United States. Her artistry has taken her to many of the world’s leading venues, including The Big Hall of Moscow Conservatory, The Seoul Arts Center in Korea, Italy’s La Scala, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall and Carnegie’s Weill Hall, where her performance was recorded and broadcast by New York’s WQXR Classical Music Station.
Tessman was admitted to the Moscow State Conservatory, where she studied with teachers such as Valery Kastelsky, Pavel Nersessian, Nikolai Lugansky, Sergei Dorensky (with whom she pursued her studies as a post-graduate student), and Mstislav Rostropovich. After finishing her Bachelor and Master degrees at the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatoire, Tessman moved to the United States, where she earned her Doctoral degree at Manhattan School of Music under the guidance of Solomon Mikowsky, where she was a recipient of the Elda van Gelder Memorial Foundation Scholarship.
Dr. Tessman is the Artistic Director of the Mid-America Performing Arts Alliance.