Philharmonic Plants Youth Orchestra Seed

A few weeks ago, Edson Natareno was counting down the days of summer - - not in dread, but in anticipation. For the 10-year-old, the start of school meant the start of a new orchestra season. “I'm excited for clarinet practice again," said the fifth-grader at Dr. Theodore T. Alexander Science Center School. “I want to play well and get better."

Edson is one of about 150 members of the nascent Youth Orchestra L.A., the Los Angeles Philharmonic's effort to establish youth orchestras in underserved areas of the city. For parents such as Angel Gonzlez, YOLA offers children more than just music. His son Daniel, 13, plays the trumpet, and daughter Genesis, 10, the violin, and both sing in a choir run by YOLA's partner, the Harmony Project. Gonzlez said the orchestra began as something to keep the kids busy. But then his children grew more disciplined, watched less TV and voluntarily practiced their instruments.

“I don't have to tell them anything, they just go," he said. “They go to their rooms and start playing themselves."

Philharmonic Chief Executive and President Deborah Borda said instilling self-starting behavior in kids is one of the program's goals. Music education, she said, “will roll over and spill over into other parts of their lives. It's the ability to concentrate, the ability to learn, the ability to work well with a group, the ability to stick with something."

The youth orchestra was hatched in spring 2007, drawing inspiration from the Philharmonic's incoming music director, Gustavo Dudamel, the most heralded graduate of Venezuela's El Sistema. That program, funded by the government's health department, brings free instruments and orchestras to mostly disadvantaged Venezuelan children.