Villa Musica and La Jolla Symphony & Chorus Partner For Carnegie Hall's LINK UP Program

In collaboration with Carnegie Hall, Villa Musica and La Jolla Symphony and Chorus have partnered to participate in Link Up, a music education program provided by Carnegie Hall's Weill Music Institute (WMI), during the 2022-2023 season. 220 students participating in the Link Up curriculum will attend a culminating concert on May 6th at 4:30pm at Mandeville Auditorium, UC San Diego where they will sing and play the recorder with the orchestra from their seats. This experience often serves as a students' first concert experience and provides them with the opportunity to apply the musical concepts they have studied in class during the academic year.

For more than 35 years, Link Up has paired orchestras with students in grades 3-5 at schools in their local communities to explore orchestral repertoire and fundamental musical skills, including creative work and composition, through a hands-on music curriculum. Link Up addresses the urgent need for music instruction and resources by providing a free, high quality, year-long curriculum that teachers can implement, along with classroom materials, online video and audio resources, and the professional development and support necessary to make the program an engaging experience for students. This kind of concert collaboration is a FIRST for Southern California.

Villa Musica Artistic and Executive Director, Fiona Chatwin shared "What an incredible experience to watch these students experience music in this way. The opportunity to learn an instrument - and then perform alongside the musicians of La Jolla Symphony Orchestra! Villa Musica is thrilled to partner with LJS&C with support from the California Arts Council to facilitate Carnegie Hall's Link Up program to 4th-grade students, in 4 of the Kearny Cluster elementary schools. All of the participating students come from Title 1 schools, with a majority of students from low income families. Villa Musica sent teaching artist, Jonathan Lopez, to each of the classrooms on a weekly basis starting in October of 2022. Via an interactive curriculum, the children learned to play recorder, sing, and worked on a variety of essential rhythmic and structural concepts as they explored each of the 10 pieces they will play, sing and dance along with. In Fall of 2023, we plan to expand this program to a further 4 elementary schools in the same neighborhood, with another culminating performance in May of 2024. Provided funding continues - we hope to offer this program to each of the 10 elementary schools in the Kearney cluster by Fall of 2024. Not only has this program engaged the students in music at a younger age than typical district music programs currently offer, it also aligns with the overarching music goals of the entire cluster by supporting a trajectory for students to learn wind instruments at the middle and high-school level."

Executive Director of La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, Stephanie Weaver added "We at the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus are thrilled to be partnering with Villa Musica to present this unique and inspiring experience for our San Diego students and their families. The union of our two organizations creates an ideal ecosystem of music education and performance, planting the seeds for a lifelong relationship with music in our young students. The Link Up program offers children and their families the opportunity not just to experience excellent orchestral and choral music as listeners, but also to actively participate in the concert process as performers and musicians themselves."

The Program performed by La Jolla Symphony and Chorus, and accompanied by the children participating in Link Up Includes

1. Overture Marriage of Figaro - Children listening
2. Orchestra Families - Children listening
3. Come to play - Children Singing
4. The Blue Danube - Children playing Recorder
5. Danzon No. 2 - Children Listening/Clapping
6. Baracarolle - Children playing Recorder
7. "Toreador" Carmen - Children Singing
8. Symphony No. 5, Mvt 1 - Allegro con Brio, Beethoven - Children Listening/Moving
9. Cidade maravilhosa - Children Listening/Moving

Photo Credit: Daniel Potter

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