ZUMIX is an East Boston-based nonprofit organization dedicated to building our community through music and the arts. A core belief is that music is the most powerful means of developing adolescent self-identity. Our award-winning music and creative technology programming is designed to equip youth with the tools necessary to reach their full potential, while creating a safe space for youth to explore who they are and who they want to be. Through community events, ZUMIX provides access to top-quality arts experiences for a low-income, under-served neighborhood.

Madeleine Steczynski, Co-Founder and Executive Director, is an East Boston resident. She founded ZUMIX in 1991 in response to the worst year of violence in the City of Boston's history. Together with ZUMIX's Board of Directors and Youth Advisory Board, she has grown ZUMIX from a kitchen table project into a vital East Boston community institution. As an advocate for the arts, Madeleine has served on the Executive Committee for East Boston Healthy Boston Coalition; was one of the founding members of Cultural Connections, a three-year effort to integrate arts as part of a Sustainable Community initiative funded by The PEW Charitable Trust; and served as an Artistic Fellow for The Boston Foundation’s Arts and Audiences Initiative. n 2009 she successfully completed a $4.6 million dollar capital campaign and moved ZUMIX into its new home. In 2011 Madeleine started a 3-year learning journey as a prestigious Barr Fellow. Madeleine attended Boston College, the School of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts – Boston, and the Executive Leadership Program at Harvard University.

Elena Botkin-Levy, ZUMIX Radio Coordinator, is a radio producer, educator and enthusiast. She started producing radio as a teenager, co-founding RadioActive Youth — a youth-run radio program in Western Massachusetts. Since then she has continued to deepen her love of radio. At WMUA 91.1FM in Amherst, she facilitated and engineered a local community radio-programming block. As a coordinator with the Prometheus Radio Project, Elena organized with community radio stations across the country and she traveled to Kenya to partner with international community radio organizers. She has produced radio documentaries and news for national broadcast. Her radio work has aired on Making Contact, Free Speech Radio News, and Crosscurrents. In Oakland, California, Elena coordinated and produced radio programs with the National Radio Project. She also taught radio production to youth at outLoud Radio in San Francisco.