ACSO Member Projects Receive Over $400,000 in California Arts Council Grants

The California Arts Council has invested a projected $24.5 million in arts funding for 2019/2020, and it will fund more than 1,300 grants in support of strengthening California’s arts sector. This year's projected total award amount marks an increase of more than $8.1 million over last year's investment and represents the second highest investment in statewide arts programming, surpassed only by the 2000/2001 fiscal year.   

Awarded project designs span the whole of the arts and cultural fields, with funding offered in 14 unique grant program areas. ACSO members have received grants in six categories totaling more than $400,000 for their incredible projects! Please join us in congratulating ACSO members Carmel Bach Festival, Pasadena Symphony, Fresno Philharmonic, Long Beach Symphony, Monterey Symphony, Music in the Mountains, Pacific Symphony, Redlands Symphony, San Bernardino Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, San Diego Symphony, Santa Rosa Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, California Symphony, Mill Valley Philharmonic, San Diego Youth Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, Santa Monica Youth Orchestra, Golden State Youth Orchestra, and Youth Orchestras of Fresno! More on their projects below, courtesy of the California Arts Council.

Category: Artists in Schools 
   
CARMEL BACH FESTIVAL, Monterey County, $8,466
With support from the California Arts Council, Carmel Bach Festival presents Sing Out Loud!, a songwriting residency that combines creative writing, music, movement, individual expression, and collaboration as a means to spark interest and inspired learning for 5th grade students while creating their own original songs. This residency encourages a supportive environment and creates a safe space in which kids learn to be very generous, encouraging, and welcoming of new ideas.
   
PASADENA SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION, Los Angeles County, $7,671 
With support from the California Arts Council, the Pasadena Symphony Association (PSA) will expand our Pasadena Symphony Teaching Artists program from five schools to nine schools in the Pasadena Unified School District (PUSD), providing access to quality music education to an additional 160 students. This grant will deepen the partnership between the PSA and the PUSD and support high quality music instructors in the highest-need elementary and middle schools in the district.

Category: Arts Education Exposure
   
CARMEL BACH FESTIVAL, Monterey County, $16,200 
With support from the California Arts Council, the Carmel Bach Festival will present Crossing Cultures, innovative and inspiring chamber ensemble concerts and clinics to schools in Seaside, Marina, and Salinas. Our work will support ongoing efforts to advance music programs and create opportunities to experience the transformative power of live classical music. Our activities will inspire meaningful connections that encourage, acknowledge, and respectfully engage all students and cultures.

FRESNO PHILHARMONIC, Fresno County, $18,000
With support from the California Arts Council, the Fresno Philharmonic will present the Link Up music education program, developed by Carnegie Hall’s Weill Music Institute, to over 11,500 students (74% of whom attend Title I elementary schools) during the 2019-20 school year. The program provides students in grades 3-5 with a high quality, standards-based curriculum for recorder and voice and prepares them to perform with the Fresno Philharmonic in one of six interactive culminating concerts.
   
LONG BEACH SYMPHONY, Los Angeles County, $18,000
With support from the CAC, the Symphony will perform four concerts at our performance hall for 12,000 4th and 5th grade students from every elementary school in the LBUSD. The concerts will present age-appropriate music tied to what students are learning in school. One hundred high school orchestra students will be invited to perform side by side with our professional musicians. An online Teacher Resource Guide will connect the concert to California VAPA Standards and the school district’s music textbook.

MONTEREY SYMPHONY, Monterey County, $16,200
With support from the California Arts Council, Monterey County Symphony Association will increase its Music for the Schools program capacity by 20% in 2019-20 to serve 8,400 students from 75 Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz county schools. Eight free-of-charge youth concerts will be held (four in Carmel and four in Salinas) with customized classroom materials, school visits, and bus scholarships available to facilitate widespread participation by schools with limited economic and transportation resources.
   
MUSIC IN THE MOUNTAINS, Nevada County, $14,400
With support from the California Arts Council, Music in the Mountains will be able to facilitate The Full Circle Music Project: free orchestra concerts throughout the Nevada County schools (grades K-12). These concerts will expose, educate, and empower the student audiences by allowing them to see and hear music written and performed by their peers. Music will be written by students in MIM’s Young Composers Project (YCP) and performed by student musicians in MIM’s Youth Orchestra (MIMYO).
   
PACIFIC SYMPHONY, Orange County, $18,000
With support from the CAC, Pacific Symphony will help fund artist fees for 88 orchestra musicians who perform in the Class Act Youth Concerts for underserved grade 2-6 students. Through the Class Act music education program, children in six Title I Anaheim schools will attend Pacific Symphony concerts at the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall in May 2020. Class Act annually provides some 16,600 students with music education, participatory activities and free Symphony concerts.
   
REDLANDS SYMPHONY, San Bernardino County, $16,200
With support from the California Arts Council, Redlands Symphony Association will provide free music education activities for approximately 10,000 students in the Redlands, Yucapia-Calimesa, Beaument and Banning Unified School Districts. This includes five youth concerts presented by Redlands Symphony for 7,200 4th-6th grade students, four in-school ensemble performances for 2,200 students, and 600 free tickets to seasonal concert performances.
   
SAN BERNARDINO SYMPHONY
, San Bernardino County, $14,400
With support from the California Arts Council, the San Bernardino Symphony Association will provide two back-to-back matinee performances of "Cirque de la Symphonie" on February 21, 2019 at the California Theatre of the Performing Arts in downtown San Bernardino for 3,400 students in the local school districts. The attending student population will originate, primarily, with the San Bernardino City USD and are considered both economically disadvantaged and chronically arts under-served.
   
SAN DIEGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, San Diego County, $15,945 
With support from the California Arts Council, San Diego Symphony will offer Music 101: Meet the Instrument Families to 3rd and 4th graders in three schools with: 1) three in-school programs introducing students to the woodwind, brass, and string families through exposure to diverse music genres, conversation, and performance by musicians performing as a quartet or quintet; 2) online and print study guides; 3) program evaluation/documentation; and 4) docent visits/field trip to a Young People’s Concert.
   
SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY, San Francisco County, $18,000 
With support from the California Arts Council, SF Symphony’s Adventures in Music will present 14 free concerts at Davies Symphony Hall for every student in grades 1-5 in SFUSD’s 82 elementary schools. Exploring the relationships between music and scientific phenomena of sound/sound production, SF Symphony instrumentalists, led by Resident Conductor Christian Reif, will perform music in different styles and genres, and from diverse cultural traditions and historical eras.
   
SANTA ROSA SYMPHONY, Sonoma County, $16,200
With support from the California Arts Council, the Santa Rosa Symphony will sustain a comprehensive suite of free music education programs to thousands of underserved youth through It’s Elementary, fulfilling Common Core, Visual & Performing Arts, and Next Generation Science Standards with a curriculum of daily listening and response, professional development for teachers, instrumental training, and interactive, educational concerts on and off campus by professional and peer musicians.
    
THE LOS ANGELES CHAMBER ORCHESTRA, Los Angeles County, $14,400 With support from the California Arts Council, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra will present a Meet the Music (MTM) program with artist educator Derrick Spiva Jr to 3,000+ underserved elementary students. MTM will open a world of discovery through classroom lessons with curricula, docents and a concert by a world-class orchestra, exposing children to a lasting musical experience.
   
Category: Organizational Development
   
MILL VALLEY PHILHARMONIC, Marin County, $2,600
With support from the California Arts Council, Mill Valley Philharmonic will engage consultant Kate Kilbourne of Caring World Communications to design and implement a new website for the organization.

SAN DIEGO YOUTH SYMPHONY, San Diego County, $5,000
With support from the California Arts Council, San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory will hire a consultant to add a component to our student data base system to manage our inventory of over 1,000 musical instruments.

Category: Professional Development

MUSIC IN THE MOUNTAINS, Nevada County, $1,000
With support from the California Arts Council, Music in the Mountains will send our new Executive Director, who is new to the arts management field, to the following trainings: CompassPoint in-person classes Introduction to Nonprofit Finance, Supervision: Helping People Succeed - Part 1, and Budgeting Part 1; Basics & More online learning Fundraising Plan, Mastering Monthly Giving, and Empowering Your Fundraising Board.
   
Category: Research in the Arts
   
LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC, Los Angeles County, $50,000
With support from the California Arts Council, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association will partner with the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute (BCI) to investigate the impact of intensive music education on the emotional, social, and neural development of children of low socioeconomic status. The study will focus on students participating in the Youth Orchestra LA (YOLA) at Camino Nuevo program, a partnership between the LA Phil and Camino Nuevo Charter Academy.

Category: Youth Arts Action

CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Contra Costa County, $18,000
With support from the California Arts Council, the California Symphony will transform futures of elementary-age students through orchestral music training to strengthen education, foster positive decision-making, and combat poverty to unlock the world. Sound Minds is a comprehensive after-school program, inspired by El Sistema, and provides hands-on music instruction and academic enrichment to young, low-income students after school three days a week at no cost to the students or their families.
   
EL CAMINO YOUTH SYMPHONY (now GOLDEN STATE YOUTH ORCHESTRA), Santa Clara County, $9,000
With support from the California Arts Council, El Camino Youth Symphony will partner youth ages 13 to 17, professional musicians specializing in authentic Chinese instruments, an up-and-coming composer whose work blends western and eastern styles of music into singular compositions, and the incomparable talents of Asian-American storytelling artists, Eth-Noh-Tec, to create and produce a multi-disciplinary work The Listening Heart, a timely story about discovery, loss, and redemption.

LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC, Los Angeles County, $18,000
With support from the California Arts Council, the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association will provide after-school and weekend orchestral music instruction in three underserved areas of Los Angeles through its Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) program. Each year, YOLA serves 800 children in its after-school programs, who engage in a sequential, repertoire-driven curriculum delivered by highly-qualified teaching artists. YOLA is centered around the orchestra as a symbol for community.
   
PACIFIC SYMPHONY, Orange County, $14,400
With support from the CAC, Pacific Symphony will partially fund the participation of professional musicians in its Santa Ana Strings (“SAS”) violin instruction program for Title I children. SAS provides grade 2-6 students with intensive training from Symphony musicians through coaching, mentoring, performance opportunities, academic tutoring and a violin to take home. The program is designed to advance student academic achievement and encourage their continuing arts participation.

SAN DIEGO YOUTH SYMPHONY, San Diego County, $14,400
With support from the California Arts Council, SDYS’ Opus after-school program provides tuition-free orchestra and band instruction for about 350 students in grades 4-12 living near the US/Mexico border. Over 73% are Hispanic, over half are from low-income families, and 35% of the elementary students are English language learners. The program develops in disadvantaged students the skills, habits, and traits that are essential for academic, professional, and personal success.
   
SANTA BARBARA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA, Santa Barbara County, $16,200
With support from the California Arts Council, the Santa Barbara Symphony will provide equitable access to hands-on music education programs for students at 22 local schools, a majority of which are Title I. Classes conducted over 25 weeks serve 430 students with instruction taught by professional teaching artists who follow a National Core Arts Standard-based curriculum written for these programs. All students are provided with free instruments, supplies, instruction, and transportation.

SANTA MONICA YOUTH ORCHESTRA, Los Angeles County, $18,000
With support from the California Arts Council, the Santa Monica Youth Orchestra will offer “Sundays with SMYO,” a 30- week free music instruction program, for 170 youth ages 4-17 who reflect the socio-economic and cultural diversity of Santa Monica’s Pico neighborhood. It will take place at Virginia Ave. Park, and will include orchestra and choir rehearsals and sectionals, music appreciation classes, and field trips. Students will also perform at public concerts and community events.
   
SANTA ROSA SYMPHONY, Sonoma County, $16,200
With support from the California Arts Council, Santa Rosa Symphony’s Simply Strings program will continue to break down barriers to opportunity and cultivate young leaders in an economically disadvantaged community, improving access to music education for underserved children through free after-school instruction and sparking positive social change. With a seven-year commitment to each child, grades 2–8, Simply Strings uses music to foster academic success, emotional health, and prosocial skills.

YOUTH ORCHESTRAS OF FRESNO, Fresno County, $18,000
With support from the California Arts Council, YOUTH ORCHESTRAS OF FRESNO will continue to build its Access Violin Program, a free after-school music-immersion program that has been training and supporting underserved students in the Central Valley since 2011.

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