- Page One:News from the LA Phil
- Music Education:"Music for All"
- Music Makers:Five 'Takes' with Gustavo Dudamel
- Programming:One Night/Two World Premieres
- Behind the Scenes:A Conversation with Composer Steven Stucky
"Music For All"
The LA Phil’s Young Musicians Initiative moves forward with the creation of a new composing fellowship and the first of several planned orchestras for underserved youth.
On an afternoon in late October, an extraordinary group of national and international educators, administrators, and policy makers convened for a public symposium at Walt Disney Concert Hall to discuss the state of music education in Los Angeles and around the world.
“Music for All: A Vision for Los Angeles” was organized to explore how to offer the children of Los Angeles opportunities to engage with music. It also served as the official launch of Youth Orchestra LA, the city’s first community-based youth orchestra program for underserved students.
The groundbreaking program, which the New York Times recently called “the pilot project for reinventing music education in the U.S.,” builds on the LA Phil’s experience of enhancing the musicianship of local students, while embracing new partnerships with a broad spectrum of cultural and educational organizations.
In her welcoming remarks at the symposium, LA Phil President Deborah Borda revealed that the inspiration for a network of community-based orchestras grew out of her visit to Venezuela to observe El Sistema, the national music education system that provides nearly a quarter of a million children each year with daily music instruction and practice.
Borda recounted the magic of seeing and hearing young children from the barrios performing in El Sistema music centers. She spoke of music as a great social equalizer, quoting El Sistema’s founder Dr. José Antonio Abreu’s remark that “If you put a violin in a child’s hand, he can’t pick up a gun.” And she outlined the challenges of creating an El Sistema-like program in L.A.
Creating the Magic in Los Angeles — a new movement
The LA Phil’s successful Youth Orchestra Partners and School Partners programs already provide local high school and youth orchestras with instruction and support from LA Phil musicians. The newly created Composer Fellowship Program offers select high school students with the chance to work under the direction of leading composers.
The larger mission of providing thousands of underserved children in L.A. with free instruments, expert instruction, and the opportunity to participate their own community-based orchestra is an entirely new movement requiring partnerships between numerous cultural and governmental institutions.
To this end, the Philharmonic has assembled a coalition of stakeholders in Youth Orchestra LA that includes city and county agencies, LAUSD and other area school districts, community music schools, non-profit music organizations, educators, and after-school programs.
Representatives from many of the major partners in Youth Orchestra LA, including the Harmony Project, a non-profit music education provider, and the Expo Center, a community center in Exposition Park operated by the City Department of Recreation and Parks, were on hand for the symposium. Both are founding partners with the Philharmonic in the creation of the project’s first “stake in the ground” — the EXPO Youth Orchestra/Central L.A.
Learning from the World
In two panel discussions plus an onstage interview with Gustavo Dudamel, “Music for All” explored the goals, the means, and the way forward for Youth Orchestra LA.
Music educators from the U.S. and Finland reviewed the successes of overseas education models and considered the “transferable” ingredients of these programs.
Tuula Yrjö-Koskinen, Executive Director of the Finnish Music Information Center, noted Finland’s (pop. 5.2 million) disproportionately large contribution of accomplished artists to the world music scene. She attributed this to her government’s “wise and necessary” investment in music, and to a national education system that provides music instruction early, beginning with a network of “musical playschools.”
Similar results have been achieved in Venezuela, where for 20 years, and through 12 regime changes, the national government has supported music education as a method of improving social conditions and the quality of life for children in the barrios.
In the absence of a national system of support in the U.S., American educators and music professionals on the panels stressed the importance of demonstrating to policy makers that music programs lead to improved attendance, academic performance, and graduation rates.
Gustavo Dudamel, who was in Los Angeles to conduct the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela for the Philharmonic’s International Youth Orchestra Festival, spoke in an onstage interview [link] with Gail Eichenthal about the development of his conducting talent in El Sistema. He expressed the belief that early contact with music develops a lifelong appreciation of the art, making children “musicians for life.”
“Music helps children see the possibility of change in their lives,” he said, referring to the poor, underserved kids he grew up with and continues to serve as an artistic leader and a role model.
Expo Youth Orchestra LA — The First Stake in the Ground
At the time of the symposium, Youth Orchestra LA had already invited 110 students from a cluster of fifteen schools to participate in the project’s first ensemble — EXPO Youth Orchestra/Central LA.
The program puts free musical instruments in the hands of students ages 7-16, and provides free instruction and orchestral training twice a week throughout the school year. After several months of intensive instrumental instruction, sections will begin meeting for rehearsals as a full orchestra.
With the benefits of its experiences “on the ground,” and a fully-functioning model, the Youth Orchestra LA blueprint will then be rolled out to four or five additional communities in Los Angeles County, as the Philharmonic and its partners commit themselves to developing L.A.’s own “system” of youth orchestras over the next decade.
The Way Forward
While the examples of Finland and Venezuela provide us with proof that an eagerness and ability to master music and its disciplines exists in children of all ages, the full impact that high quality music education will have on the children of Los Angeles is incalculable.
In a surprise appearance, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has made education the centerpiece of his administration, spoke of the great untapped creative potential that the Philharmonic’s Initiative will help our children realize, especially those in underserved communities. He predicted that Gustavo Dudamel’s future artistic leadership in the city will have a profound impact on the young people of Los Angeles, and promised the resources of his office to make Youth Orchestra LA a success.
The symposium examined the many challenges ahead for the first broad-based American network of community youth orchestras, but with the partnerships and support for the first ensemble in place, the message for Los Angeles was clear and unanimous — “Music for All” begins with us, here and now.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall debut of the new 110-member EXPO Youth Orchestra/Central LA is slated for the winter of 2009.
