Fall 2010

YOLA at HOLA program welcomes Gustavo Dudamel

YOLA at HOLA is the second site of Youth Orchestra LA, Dudamel’s signature El Sistema-inspired initiative. The free music education program, made possible through a partnership between HOLA and the LA Phil, provides participating students with intensive afterschool orchestral instruction and academic tutoring. For five days/15 hours per week, students rotate through musicianship, instrument instruction, singing/solfège, academic tutoring, and ensembles. Click here to learn more about YOLA at HOLA. You can also view videos of Week 1, Week 3, the October 16 event, and the young musicians' reactions to Dudamel's visit.

Eric Booth teams up with YOLA Stakeholders for TA workshop

On November 9, Eric Booth, author of the The Music Teaching Artist's Bible and one of the most prominent figures in the national and international El Sistema movement, led a unique professional development session hosted by the LA Phil for local teaching artists. During the two-part workshop, entitled "The Art of Group Teaching/Learning," participants from YOLA Stakeholder Network organizations tapped the knowledge and distinctive practices from those with experience in several local El Sistema-inspired programs, and shared their own best practices with colleagues. Discussion was then turned into practice, when teaching artists had the opportunity to team-teach classes at YOLA at HOLA and reflect on their experiences.

LA Phil, Colburn partner to enhance YOLA students’ learning
Building on a pilot program from last season, The Colburn School Conservatory of Music launched a new course to prepare and support its musicians for specialized teaching and mentorship to young students from underserved communities. The Teaching Musician: Realizing Social Action through Music focuses on the critical concepts of arts learning and teaching philosophies, arts advocacy, and school and community music education systems. Colburn musicians in the course are challenged to apply new concepts to their teaching activities and develop their own personal community engagement philosophies to apply to their future careers. The course grew out of a volunteer-based program that began last year, in which Colburn musicians taught YOLA students weekly private lessons. Click here to see the course's year-long syllabus.

NOW LAUNCHED: YOLA Resource Library
Want to bring an El Sistema-inspired program to your neighborhood? Start here! The LA Phil website now features a YOLA Resource Library to help community members, music educators, and citizens across the country interested in starting their own programs. Stay tuned as the resource library grows.

Coming Soon: YOLA Neighborhood Project

Inspired by the Harlem Children’s Zone, the YOLA Neighborhood Project (YNP) is an in-depth initiative aimed at building healthy communities through a combination of education and concert programs by saturating the two neighborhoods in which YOLA is currently situated, South LA and the Rampart District, with high-quality music and music-making opportunities for youth, families, and the community at large. YNP represents an evolution of the LA Phil's pre-existing education and community programs – school programs, neighborhood concerts, and YOLA - leveraging the strengths of each to create zones of musical activity in specific neighborhoods and provide multiple entry points into the world of music and the work of the LA Phil. Schools were selected for this project based on their commitment to in-school music education.

Participating schools in the YOLA at EXPO neighborhood include: Vermont Elementary, Alexander Science Center Elementary, CRES #17, Foshay Learning Center, and West Adams Preparatory.

Participating schools in the YOLA at HOLA neighborhood include: Charles White Elementary, Charles H. Kim Elementary, Commonwealth Elementary and Camino Nuevo Charter Academy.

YOLA in the Press

Symphony Magazine – El Sistema Looks North (September/October 2010)

LA County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s Blog – Twinkling YOLA Stars (10/15/10)

Korea Daily - 삶의 양식 음악으로 멋진 세상 이끌자  LA 필하모니 두다멜 참가 (10/17/10)

La Opinión – El sueño se hace música (10/17/10)

El Universal (Venezuela) – Gustavo Dudamel regala violines a 45 niños en Los Ángeles (10/17/10)

teleSUR TV –  Sistemas de orquestas venezolanas modelo en el exterior (10/18/10)

LA Times - Gwen Stefani and the L.A. Philharmonic, together at last (11/3/10)

Euronews - Gustavo Dudamel: the Little Big Man (video feature - 11/4/10)

Strings Magazine - YOLA at HOLA: El Sistema–like Program Begins Taking Root (11/30/10)

Student Spotlight

Name: Pocholo, age 6
Program: YOLA at HOLA
Instrument: Viola
What's the best part about being in YOLA? I like using the training bows we have in viola class. I can't wait to get past the marshmallow level.
What do you like about playing the viola? It's bigger than the violin. And I know how to play the A string, and sometimes I like to make different notes.
What do you want to be when you're older? You mean when I'm a grown up? I think I want to be a marine biologist.

Name: April, age 9
Program: YOLA at HOLA
Instrument: Clarinet
What do you like about playing the clarinet? It's really new and different to me. I'd never heard of a clarinet before, so I was really excited when I found out that that was the instrument I was going to get to play.
What's your favorite memory of being in YOLA? Meeting Gustavo, because I actually got to meet one of the most famous people in the world, and he conducts the LA Phil.
What song have you learned that you like the most? Ode to Joy - it's a really happy song. And it's a song that we can all play together, as a group.

Stakeholder Spotlight

The Watts-Willowbrook Music Conservatory is a program designed to transform the lives and minds of young people in the Watts-Willowbrook area of Los Angeles through high quality music education. The program is housed at the Watts-Willowbrook Boys & Girls Club, which provides programs for youth who are challenged every day by living in one of the most economically depressed areas in Southern California. In the Conservatory, children learn to play instruments in group classes led by teachers using components of El Sistema. This way, they are constantly engaged and learn full standard notation gradually and organically. The children learn to play simple songs that allow them to have fun and feel a gratifying sense of accomplishment. The music they will learn will be a mix of styles and genres, including music reflecting the history of the Latino and African-American experience.

As they progress, students have the opportunity to enter a more advanced program in the neighborhood, the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, conducted by Charles Dickerson. Watch a recent video of the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles here.

Click here for more information about the YOLA Stakeholder Network and here for the latest news.

Leadership support for the LA Phil's Educational Initiatives is provided by the Fidelity Investments, Annenberg Foundation, Pasadena Showcase House for the Arts, Amgen Foundation, and the Rose Hills Foundation.