Youth Engagement – Chapter 2: Youth Experience (Part 2)

In this section:

• Empowering Youth Voices
• Creative Youth Development
• Youth Councils

Empowering Youth Voices

Youth orchestras have naturally shown the way in centering youth voice, but professional and community orchestras can apply similar ideas. The Detroit Symphony Orchestra has gone so far as to invite students to create their own program. As Karisa Antonio, Senior Director of Social Innovation and Learning at the DSO, explains, “we originally thought of it as a pathway [conservatory preparation] program. But because of the listening and engagement we’ve done through the Detroit Strategy, we realized we need to be more responsive to youth. Why not have students design it?” Her team met with a half-dozen 12- to 14-year-old musicians, ideating what sort of program they would look forward to participating in. The process took six months.

The result is Senza (referring to a goal of learning and growing without barriers and without assumptions): a student-driven, student-responsive professional development program. The musical growth of Senza students is supported through the DSO’s Civic Youth Ensembles (CYE), chamber music, and private lessons. But the program goes far beyond the traditional model of music education. The Senza team works to identify students’ unique areas of interest, matching them with valuable resources, experiences, and networks. Instruments are provided if needed. Students meet with a student support coach for personal and musical goal setting, time management, college preparation, and personal support. The cohort of 18-20 students provides valuable peer support. Students perform together and participate in community service and field trips.

One trumpet student, Timothy, who was among the middle schoolers who helped design Senza, started off in the CYE entry-level wind group. The Senza team noticed his do-it-yourself animation efforts. They connected him with weekly animation lessons, taking advantage of flexibility in program funding. Timothy’s talent blossomed, and now his YouTube channel videos, featuring compositions and animations, have thousands of views. This summer, Timothy was accepted into Interlochen Arts Academy to study animation for his senior year of high school. His trumpet playing has also flourished, and at Interlochen he plays in the jazz orchestra. 

“There is a universe of possibility that opens up when you pay attention to students,” says Antonio. “We must hear them, see them, walk with them, and open every door to make a way for them in the world.”

At the San Diego Symphony, Vice President for Impact and Innovation Laura Reynolds describes something similar in designing elementary classroom residencies tied to school concerts. She gathered advisers (music teachers, classroom teachers, ESL and special education teachers) to create a program that works for all. They asked, “how can we give students agency and voice in every respect? How can it be less about teachers leading?” She commissioned a graphic novel to be read together and dramatized as a class, leading into workshops with visiting chamber ensembles. When it came to the orchestra concert, Reynolds reports “kids really participated in the event—the shift in engagement was notable.” Instead of writing traditional thank-you letters, students wrote critiques which are helping to shape the program’s next iteration.

New York City’s Talent Unlimited High School encourages “courageous conversations,” which Megan Delatour describes as providing spaces where all perspectives can be heard, and all members of the community can feel seen. For a school community that is 80% BIPOC, this is particularly important. “The [conversations are] sometimes difficult, but transparency is important,” Delatour says. “We need to be honest about the possibilities in this field. If we sugarcoat it, that just sets young people up for failure. The polite version of what they say is, ‘We’re not stupid. We do not think that we will solve every problem in the music world in one week, month, or even year. But we want to be involved in those ongoing conversations even if they span years. That tells us that the work is being done and our voices are being considered in the solution.”

Creative Youth Development

Creative Youth Development (CYD) takes student-centered learning further still, having emerged in recent years as a particularly powerful approach that fully embodies a commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion within youth arts work. Recognizing the challenges faced by young people disadvantaged by systemic racism and inter-generational trauma, CYD often directly addresses racial equity and social justice in youth-led creative projects, while “supporting young people’s stories, ideas, and dreams through creative expression and honoring their lived experience.”

A good example of CYD in the orchestra world is the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra’s Music Composition Academy (MCA). Modeled on the New York Philharmonic’s Very Young Composers Program, the MCA was founded in 2017 specifically to serve students ages 14-18 from reservations in the eastern and western sides of the state. “It’s really about deep impact,” says SDSO Executive Director Jennifer Teisinger. Compared with the SDSO’s traditional education programs in Sioux Falls, “the difference with MCA is that it is engaging students from tribal communities. And, because the instruction is on a 3-4 student to 1 composer-mentor ratio, the students’ creative development is rich and, for some, transformative.” Some of the teen composers take the opportunity to deal in a healthy, creative way with emotions resulting from intergenerational racial trauma. “Beyond the musical and emotional growth of the students, SDSO is now also building trust with these students and their families,” Teisinger adds. Each fall, musicians of the SDSO play the string quartets and wind quintets students have composed during the summer, both at public events and in schools where every participating student attends, and the student composers introduce their music to the audience. The idea is thus shared with hundreds of the composers’ peers that everyone is creative, and that with hard work everyone can achieve beautiful results.

Youth Councils

Developing young leaders is not only an investment in future generations; it provides real benefit in the here and now, with youth perspectives and ingenuity suggesting new directions. The Youth Leadership Program of the Empire State Youth Orchestra supports its orchestra members in projects like creating an outdoor Soundwalk or hosting virtual residencies at nursing homes and hospitals. The program’s Ambassador track provides training for public speaking and recruitment presentations, and two youth Ambassadors are even chosen to serve as non-voting members on the board of directors. “They get Finance 101—how to balance a budget, how to make decisions—and it’s their favorite workshop every year,” says Rebecca Calos. “They come to the table with a passion and a serious desire to be part of what’s happening. It’s changed everything,” even the mission statement. In a strategic planning process, the young delegates found words like rigorous to have negative connotations. They pared the whole thing down to “ESYO engages, inspires, and empowers through music.” And it stuck.

Ankur Senpati was among the first of the Ambassadors at ESYO, and a Youth Board Representative. “I was surprised at how relaxed the board meetings were,” he reports. “And how welcoming they were, how they took my opinions and incorporated them.” Senpati, who has just graduated from ESYO and is going to college to study computer engineering, says he definitely plans to serve on orchestra boards as an adult. “I’ve realized that different perspectives are important. We need to listen and understand each perspective. That’s a skill I’ve learned, the biggest thing I got out of it.”

The League of American Orchestras has also launched a Student Leadership Council (SLC) to bring youth perspective to its national work. Five high school, college, and graduate students were selected for its first cohort, and were paired with professionals in the field based on their career aspirations. The Council meets quarterly to help strategize growth of the League’s Student Constituency and plan League Conference content for that group. What’s more, its members have co-designed and spoken at a League Conference session and contributed essays to a Symphony magazine article. One has spoken with League donors and another serves on the League’s Finance and HR Resource Center Advisory Group.

Lorin Green, an inaugural council member who now works at the Seattle Symphony, says “it’s important to have the voices of students represented. We may not have 30 years of executive experience, but we see different things from a different perspective that are needed.” The most important factor in making the council work, she says, is for the institution actually to listen. As an African American, she says, “I have been asked to be the one person-of-color or student voice in various situations, but I rarely see that they value my voice as much as others.” Green was pleased to see League President Simon Woods at the Student Leadership Council’s session at the 2024 League Conference. “A lot of orchestras would benefit from having more youth perspective,” says Green. “The League is setting the example and saying, ‘if we benefit, so will you.’”

“We tend to think about youth or different populations in big buckets. We really have to think of individuals. We like to compartmentalize, but we’re in a more messy time. We have to become more comfortable with being uncomfortable and get over our obsession with perfectionism. We have to be able to take risks and interact with people on a human level.”

Suzanne Perrino, Senior Vice President of Learning and Engagement, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

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Photo: The YOSA (Youth Orchestras of San Antonio) Student Experience team in Summer 2024. Back row L-R: Andrew Walker (Interim Enrollment Manager), Eric Peterson (Production Manager), Gary Fair (Pathway Programs Coordinator), Jacob Eddy (YOSA Intern), Blake Bryan (YOSA Intern) Front row L-R: Tessa Gartin (Student Experience Coordinator), Sara Vicinaiz (Director of Student Experience), JD Garcia (Enrollment Manager). Credit: Pam De La Mora