San Diego Youth Symphony Proves Hope Floats (San Diego: San Diego News Room)

As California continues to grapple with budget woes, extracurricular programs such as school orchestras and bands are gasping for survival.

Nevertheless, amid a sinking economy, the San Diego Youth Symphony has found a way to keep swimming.

A diverse revenue base has allowed for growth and sustainability throughout the past 64 years, according to Dalouge Smith, president and CEO of the San Diego Youth Symphony.

“SDYS maintains a balanced budget without any debt … In addition to donations and grants, SDYS earns nearly 50 percent of each season’s operating budget through ticket sales, tuition, special programs, concession income and printed ads,” said Smith. “A modest spending allowance from the Youth Symphony’s endowment also provides funding each season. This balanced approach to revenue has allowed the Youth Symphony to remain financially stable even in the midst of last year’s economic downturn.”

The sixth oldest continuously operating youth orchestra in the United States, the San Diego Youth Symphony comprises three advanced symphony orchestras and four large ensembles for students at the intermediate and introductory levels.

The Youth Symphony’s financial stability is music to many public music teachers’ ears. With the vast majority of its musicians attending public schools, the Youth Symphony’s training supplements school programs faced with a lack of funding.

For example, the San Diego Youth Symphony has been working with Oak Park Music Conservatory for five years. As part of the Youth Symphony’s community outreach, an Oak Park Percussion Ensemble is taught on campus and open to fourth and fifth grade students who will then study both traditional drumming and African djembe drumming.

“The students in the Percussion Ensemble become outstanding rhythm readers in our Oak Park Music Conservatory band and orchestra programs,” said Joanne Terry, the instrumental music teacher and band director at Oak Park Music Conservatory, a San Diego Unified elementary school.

“The Youth Symphony gives students the self-confidence to be leaders in their section at school.  They rehearse and perform with the best musicians in the county and they strive to better their musicianship to meet or exceed their peers,” said Terry. “As they mentor and teach the Oak Park students in many musical ways they become stronger in their knowledge of reading music and playing more complex rhythms.”

Terry’s Oak Park program was cut $70 per student for the upcoming school year. The funding shortage affects purchasing consumable and non-consumable supplies for students as well as the school’s instrument repair budget.

“As we supply the Oak Park Music Conservatory students with their instrument of choice, supplies related to their instrument and all music and method books, and keep all instruments in repair for highest quality playing condition, we are feeling the crunch even before this next school year begins,” Terry said.

Despite money woes within the school program, Oak Park students are still afforded the opportunity to participate in the Youth Symphony with financial help via scholarships.

“The SDYS has been a very generous partner with Oak Park Music Conservatory,” said Terry, who has had students perform with the Youth Symphony for five years.

And although individual membership in the Youth Symphony may cost up to $615, any student who qualifies for the federal free/reduced lunch program is eligible for a full tuition scholarship, said Smith.

The financial assistance couldn’t be available at a better time. “Last year we distributed over $40,000 in tuition scholarships,” Smith said.

Those scholarships are for many students a positive harbinger for their college years. “We always have a number of students who receive scholarships to study music each year,” said Smith.

Membership in the San Diego Youth Symphony, it seems, is a good indication of whether college is in a student’s future: At least ninety percent of the 2009-2010 Youth Symphony’s graduating seniors were planning to attend college in the fall.

And even if the student does not plan to study music in college, they often continue their commitment to the art.

“Most of our students actually go on to major in other areas of interest and keep music in their lives in other ways…by playing in their free time, or in community or university ensembles,” said Smith.loats

Source: San Diego News Room, July 7, 2010

Author: Genevieve A. Suzuki