![]() ![]() Younger generations will be relied upon to solve the housing and healthcare challenges they see their parents and grandparents facing. That’s a model of collaboration that could serve the world well as the population ages. The music program has youngsters and seniors side by side. choir during a rehearsal May 24 at Lafayette Park in Los Angeles. ![]() The players had varying degrees of training and skill, but that set up the possibility of growth, with the more advanced musicians - regardless of age - mentoring those with less experience. “We gain strength from the people we get to be with,” he said one night at rehearsal in describing both the mission and the soul of HOLA.īrown tapped Suk - an accomplished conductor, artistic director and operatic singer - and the search began for musicians, some of whom were music teachers at HOLA and some of whom were current or former students. He is naturally inclined, against a host of entrenched economic and social challenges, to see the city as a place of hope, its full potential yearning to be tapped. “I then asked Tony, if we provided the funding, would he be able to build such a group here in our city?” Stamp said.īrown was all in. At one point, he traveled with Trent Stamp of the Eisner Foundation to see an intergenerational orchestra in New Jersey. I was lucky enough to have a front-row seat thanks to an invitation from Tony Brown, chief executive of the nonprofit HOLA, which provides free after-school programs in academics, athletics and arts as part of its mission to bulldoze barriers to opportunity.īrown had long wanted to develop programs that might bridge cultural and generational gaps and create a deeper sense of community. They came together across a spectrum of ethnicity, age and income, and maestro Daniel Suk was filled with pride when he stepped to the podium - not just because of the musical growth he’d witnessed from an orchestra built to mirror the many faces of Los Angeles but because of the bonds formed among the performers and what they represent. A retired theater director, 73, took his place in the double bass section, near three high school percussionists. A 48-year-old doctor who works on Skid Row set up near a shy middle school student. ![]() They took their seats with more than 70 other members of the orchestra, some of whom arrived on foot or by bus, bicycle or scooter. A 14-year-old violinist who lives near LAX was driven in by her mother. After six months of preparation at a cavernous hall near Sixth and Rampart, the big concert was less than a week away, and Monday would be the final rehearsal for an orchestra unlike any other in California.Ī 76-year-old clarinet player drove in from Camarillo. ![]()
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