A nonprofit founded by Bernadette Bascom

Every voice deserves a stage.

SPEAK! Music As Language uses breath, rhythm, and song to help children with speech disabilities find their voices — and gives them a real audience when they do.

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From silence to sound

Music is a language. We teach children to speak it — until they can speak their own.

At SPEAK! Music As Language, we believe every child deserves a voice — and sometimes that voice begins as music. Through singing, non-speaking and speech-disabled children make real strides in communication: first a breath, then a rhythm, then a melody, then a word.

The work began in a classroom. In 2007, Bernadette Bascom started the Music Project at the Secondary Academy of Success, the Northshore School District’s alternative high school in Bothell, Washington. She discovered that many of her students were neurodivergent — and that singing together transformed how they spoke, connected, and carried themselves. The program grew school by school, concert by concert, into the foundation that SPEAK! is today.

The disabled person is always at the center of this work — not as a subject being managed, but as the author of their own communication and the star of their own show.

“Life isn’t all about you. It’s about what you can do for others.” Bernadette Bascom, to KING 5 News
Tonight’s program

The life of Bernadette Bascom

Singer. Teacher. Founder. Her story reads like a concert — so here it is, act by act.

Act I

A house of faith and music

Baltimore, Maryland

Bernadette Bascom was raised in Baltimore, the daughter of Rev. Marion C. Bascom, pastor of Douglas Memorial Community Church for 46 years, and Lutherine Bascom, a music teacher. Her father preached education; her mother quietly took her to rehearsals. Both gave her something she has spent her life passing on — the conviction that a voice is meant to be used.

She began in radio as a voice artist, and her break came early: an invitation to sing with The People’s Choice, fresh off a number-one single. The road took her west — and one tour stop changed everything.

The legacy she carries

Rev. Marion C. Bascom was one of Baltimore’s great civil rights leaders. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Alabama, led marches in Annapolis, helped desegregate the city’s parks and restaurants, and served as Baltimore’s first Black fire commissioner. On July 4, 1963, he was among 283 people arrested at the segregated Gwynn Oak Amusement Park in a nonviolent protest. The park integrated the following month.

“I have nothing to lose but my chains.”
Rev. Marion C. Bascom, Gwynn Oak, 1963

His daughter’s work carries the same charge: everyone deserves to be heard. SPEAK! is civil rights work in a new key — the right of every child to a voice.

Act II

First on the label

Seattle & the road

Bernadette fell in love with Seattle on tour and stayed, becoming part of the city’s legendary funk and soul scene with Epicentre and Acapulco Gold. In 1980 she became the first artist ever signed to Stevie Wonder’s Black Bull record label — and through him trained with famed vocal coach Seth Riggs, whose students ranged from Ray Charles to Michael Jackson. Along the way she shared stages with Elton John, Ashford & Simpson, and Tower of Power’s Lenny Williams, and released her trademark single, “I Don’t Want to Lose Your Love.”

Act III

Six nights a week on the Strip

Las Vegas, Nevada

Las Vegas made her a headliner’s headliner. She co-starred in the long-running Divine Divas and won a competitive casting call to perform as one of the Supremes in the Motown Moments revue at the Motown Café, New York-New York Hotel & Casino — years of two shows a night, six nights a week, singing the songbook she grew up on.

Act IV

The calling

Seattle, Washington

In 2004 she came home to Seattle — and turned the discipline of a lifetime on stage into a life of teaching. She created PRAISE!, a Sunday Gospel Supper at The Triple Door, joined Northwest University in Kirkland as a professor of performance and voice, and in 2007 founded the Music Project in the Northshore School District. Room 315 at the Anderson School in Bothell is dedicated to her. In 2011, her home county took note as well: Baltimore County honored her with a Council Resolution and an Executive Citation.

Then KING 5 News filmed what happened in her classroom. The documentary, “Bernadette’s Touch” — produced by John Sharify and Douglas Burgess — followed her students, the Wranglers, and earned a 2013 Emmy Award. As she said of the honor: to be acknowledged for loving and caring for others is the ultimate blessing.

Encore

SPEAK! goes to the world

Everywhere

The Music Project could only reach children who could reach Bernadette. So she collaborated with Microsoft to build the SPEAK! Music As Language app — carrying her method of breath, rhythm, articulation, and melody into homes and classrooms far beyond the Pacific Northwest. The encore isn’t hers. It belongs to every child who finds their voice.

The method

Four pillars, one voice

Bernadette’s approach treats speech the way a singer treats a song — built from the body up. Each pillar is a skill children practice in music first, then carry into everyday speaking.

I

Breath control

Children are guided in proper breathing techniques to increase vocal strength and improve clarity.

II

Rhythm & fluency

Rhythmic cues — a built-in metronome in the app — improve timing, pacing, and overall fluency.

III

Physicality & articulation

Jaw, tongue, and lip exercises build muscle coordination and support clearer articulation.

IV

Melody & memory

Associating sound and melody with words strengthens memory retention and recall — and makes learning joyful.

A whole-child, whole-community continuum. Communication grows when home and school pull in the same direction. SPEAK! equips parents, caregivers, teachers, and siblings to learn the same techniques and use the same language — so the child’s progress travels with them everywhere they go.

The SPEAK! app

Bernadette’s classroom, in your pocket

Developed with Microsoft and released in 2023, the SPEAK! Music As Language app brings the Music Project’s multisensory method — music, breath control, rhythm, and physicality — into homes and classrooms as a joyful early-intervention tool for children with speech disabilities.

  • Lessons and activities led by Bernadette herself
  • Practice built on the four pillars of her method
  • Designed to connect home and school around each child
Get SPEAK! on the App Store
“Giving young people words to sing, until they can find their own words to speak.”

The promise of SPEAK! — from the app itself.

An evening with SPEAK!

The SPEAK! Gala

One night, one stage, and the students at the center of it — with the community that believes in them filling the house.

October 11, 2026 — the first Bernadette Bascom Day
McMenamins Anderson School · Bothell, Washington

The City of Bothell is proclaiming October 11 Bernadette Bascom Day and naming Bernadette a Hometown Hero — and we’re celebrating the first one together, in the very building where Room 315 bears her name. An evening of performances, stories, and celebration in support of SPEAK! Music As Language. Every ticket puts a child on stage.

Reserve gala tickets
Get in touch

We’re one step away

Questions about the program, the app, the gala, or partnering with SPEAK!? Reach out — we’d love to hear from you.

Follow the music

Stay close to the work

Concerts, classroom moments, and milestones — shared as they happen.

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