Month: December 2021

For the first time in almost exactly two years, DCYOP proudly presented all nine of our ensembles – from the beginners who were performing in a group for the very first time to the seasoned pros in our full symphonic orchestras – on an indoor stage before an enthusiastic audience at the Columbia Heights Education Campus.

After weeks of careful preparations and planning to ensure the safety and security of our students, we welcomed them along with their friends and families to enjoy a full days of concerts that spanned an impressive range of works from contemporary pieces for young student musicians to some of the most beloved works of the traditional canon. We were also proud to present the world premiere of “Undiscovered Pathways,” an exciting new work by local composer Adrian B. Sims, that was commissioned through the K-12 New Music Project. 

You can hear all four concerts on our YouTube channel by checking out our 2021 Winter Concerts playlist. Be sure to subscribe to catch more exciting performances to come in 2022!

In the meantime, please enjoy this clip of our Youth Philharmonic led by Maestro Kenneth Whitley in a performance of the festive final movement of Gustav Holst’s St. Paul’s Suite:

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPaUXbH2yvY&list=PLwdb-bMw2IhjSS6oA6M92blR0JMhzcWsN&index=19″ ]

 

By Elizabeth Schurgin, Executive Director

DCYOP and its partners are launching a major new talent development program in 2022 for student-musicians who identify as Black, Indigenous, or People of Color. The initiative provides comprehensive musical support, including scholarships, mentorship, and other unique opportunities, to talented young musicians in their personal musical journeys. 

The Washington Musical Pathways Initiative is a partnership of DCYOP, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the National Symphony Orchestra, and Levine Music, funded with a $2 million grant award from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Together, the partners will champion a collective approach to creating a more diverse and inclusive American orchestral music community in the greater Washington metropolitan region.

For the past 2 ½ years, DCYOP has chaired the Steering Committee that has led the effort to create a shared vision for this program. DCYOP will house the Pathways director, who will oversee the day-to-day operations of the program. DCYOP will take the lead in recruiting students, providing ensemble programming, and developing and implementing an equity-focused vetting process for teachers. Other Pathways programs can be found in Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and several other cities.

Why was DCYOP selected to be a partner? Because diversity and equity are in DCYOP’s DNA. 

When DCYOP was founded in 1960, it was a youth orchestra composed of mostly Black musicians. Not long after the group started, it achieved both national and international recognition for its musical talent. The group was the first youth orchestra to perform at the Kennedy Center, played alongside musical luminaries such as Aaron Copland, and frequently played for presidents and diplomats. While it achieved acclaim as a youth orchestra, it also fostered the musical development of many talented Black musicians. DCYOP is where conductor Michael Morgan got his start, where Toyin Spellman-Diaz spent hours playing the oboe, and where Emmy Award-winning composer John Wineglass played violin for ten years. DCYOP and its students succeeded in spite of the racial inequalities and systemic barriers that were widespread in the orchestral world at the time. 

Even today, structural inequities persist: orchestras throughout the country are still overwhelmingly white spaces. In 2016, the League of American Orchestras released a report that showed that Black and Latinx musicians made up 2 percent and 3 percent of professional symphony orchestras. 

DCYOP is committed to changing this, embracing diversity across multiple realms. For the past 60 years, DCYOP’s youth have come from diverse backgrounds. Today, 65 percent of our musicians identify as BIPOC, representing 100 different zip codes and a variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. We make it our mission to work with students with different resources and backgrounds, which is why we established our Talent Development Program in 2016. The program provides mentorship, private lessons, and other advanced musical training opportunities for talented youth who cannot afford it. In many ways, Pathways is a turbocharged Talent Development Program.

As with any new opportunity at DCYOP, we analyze and reflect to ensure that it is aligned with our mission and beliefs. It is easy to see how Pathways fits into our mission—to empower young people to transform their lives through music and community. But what really made us commit to pursuing this new initiative was that it also aligns with our core beliefs:  

• All young people should have access to the transformative power of music education.
• Excellence is fostered through diversity, inclusion, and community.
• Students are supported in their personal journeys by meeting them where they are.
• Youth orchestras can model change and shape the future of the orchestral music world.

Diversity is the future for the orchestral world and it starts with creating equitable opportunities for young musicians.

More information on the program including eligibility and how to apply will be available in January.

By Elizabeth Schurgin, Executive Director

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Any plan for future success requires knowing what has made our successes to date possible. So when renown arts management expert and former president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Michael Kaiser called DCYOP a “model for growth” and one of the “best managed” arts organizations in all of Washington, we had to ask ourselves “why?”

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DCYOP has had some notable successes over the past few years. We have an outstanding pedagogy and artistic offerings. We have a diverse and talented student body. And we have a strong and growing organization: since 2014, we’ve expanded enrollment by 50%, doubled our budget and tripled our operating reserves. We know this because we recently completed a strategic planning process with Michael Kaiser himself. Yes, “The Turnaround King” called DCYOP one of the “most exciting arts organizations in Washington.” 

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And why is this? Our community! Our greatest strength is our community—DCYOP’s musical family. We know that every member of our family is essential to our success: our students, families, faculty, staff, board, partners, supporters, alumni, and volunteers make this organization unique. This community stayed together during the pandemic. It ensured that our students could continue their musical journeys together during a truly challenging time. And this community shows that it values the success of every student, beyond musical skill alone.

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So when we started our strategic planning process, it was important to us that our community weigh in on the plan. We received feedback from all different members of our community through surveys and interviews. They talked about our welcoming staff, dedicated faculty and wonderful families. This feedback was essential in guiding our path forward and it showed us that something critical was missing from our mission statement: the word “community.”  It also made clear that it was time to update DCYOP’s mission statement and to write down our core beliefs to reflect what we heard was important to our musical family.

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A mission statement is not a plan. And it doesn’t include the roadmap we are laying out for the coming years. It is a grounding statement that constantly reminds us why we exist, and it should guide our plan-making: do our plans help us achieve our mission? If not, or not as much as they should, how can we improve our plans?

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Our belief statements also guide our work. They remind us of who we are and want to be as an organization. As with the mission statement, we continuously ask ourselves if a plan, a program, a piece of writing is reflective of who we say we are and, if not, set about adjusting them. Plans change. Core beliefs, in general, do not.

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I hope that this mission and these beliefs reflect the DC Youth Orchestra Program you are a part of. And I hope that you will feel empowered to reach out to us when you think we are straying from them. After all, community is at the core of DCYOP and we are all responsible for making it what it is.

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OUR MISSION

To empower young people to transform their lives through music and community.

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WE BELIEVE 

• All young people should have access to the transformative power of music education.
• Excellence is fostered through diversity, inclusion, and community.
• Students are supported in their personal journeys by meeting them where they are.
• Youth orchestras can model change and shape the future of the orchestral music world.

When you think of world premieres of musical works, you probably don’t think about them taking place in our school music classrooms or at youth orchestra concerts. But DCYOP and the K-12 New Music Project is working to change that. Later this year our students will play two new works by living composers of color, part of our commitment to making sure that each of our students can see themselves represented in the music they play. 

“We have an obligation to our students and community and as leaders in the youth orchestra world to find and amplify these voices,” says Evan Solomon, DCYOP’s artistic director. “It isn’t enough to say ‘sorry, there just aren’t Black or Brown works in the musical canon for the students to play.” 

Thanks to a grant from the League of American Orchestras to the University of Maryland’s National Orchestra Institute + Festival, led by DCYOP’s Maestro Richard Scerbo, the K-12 New Music Project is working in partnership with DCYOP, Prince George’s County Schools, and the Hawaii Youth Symphony to commission more works by BIPOC composers for student ensembles.

This year, the selection committee chose works by four outstanding composers representing a wide range of backgrounds and musical styles: Brazilian Grammy-nominated composer and performer Clarice Assad; Dr. Michael-Thomas Foumai, a symphonic composer whose works reflect the history, people, and cultures of Hawai’i; Adrian B. Sims, who is currently pursuing a dual degree in Music Education and Composition at the University of Maryland; and Derrick Skye, a Los Angeles composer and musician known for incorporating diverse cultural traditions into his work.  

DCYOP’s own Maestro Kenneth Whitley was part of the selection committee:

“I am honored to a part of the K-12 New Music Project. The selection committee has listened to music from a broad spectrum of composers, and it is exciting to know that this music is for young musicians. The composers whose works we heard – and continue to hear – span the range of expression and technique. While the project commissions new works from BIPOC composers, their work will influence future generations of musicians and audiences. Some students who hear the music from these new voices will see their own curiosity about composition grow. They in turn may add to the musical canon. As we learn about the music from this group of composers and come to know their stories, we will see that they enrich and amplify the legacy that is our musical heritage.” 

DCYOP is committed to our responsibility to model inclusion, equity, and diversity for the youth orchestra field, and is excited to premiere two of these new works over the course of the 2021-2022 season!