YOLA Alumni Travel To Mexico City For Multi-Day Workshop

Four alumni of the LA Phil's Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) program are traveling to Mexico City this week to participate in "Encounters/Encuentros," a four-day intensive art and citizenship workshop for young musicians from across the Americas. The workshop is a part of Gustavo Dudamel and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's "Americas" tour, a symbolic series of eleven concerts uniting North, Central and South America.

From March 1 to 4, the YOLA alumni will join 300 fellow young musicians from artistic and community programs in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Argentina and Chile to participate in rehearsals, discussions, and a final performance at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City. The workshop will be conducted under the guidance of Dudamel alongside an international faculty of world-class teachers, including YOLA Teaching Artist and bassoonist Alex Rosales García. The repertoire includes Arturo Márquez's Alas (a Malala), dedicated to Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, and Dvo?ák's "New World" Symphony.

Many of the participating young musicians will come from local education initiatives promoting music education in underserved communities. These programs are similar to the LA Phil's own YOLA program, Dudamel's signature initiative which serves nearly 1,000 students throughout Los Angeles. Participants will come together with the goal of "exploring the cultural unity of the Americas and offer a timely celebration of harmony, equality, dignity, beauty and respect through music," according to the Dudamel Foundation.

The workshop is a partnership between the Dudamel Foundation, Mexico's National Institute of Fine Arts (Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, or INBA), Mexico's Secretary of Culture, and the Arturo Márquez Foundation.

YOLA musicians have traveled abroad in the past, accompanying Dudamel and the LA Phil to London in 2013 and 2016, and Tokyo in 2015. Members of YOLA will return to London in Spring 2018 during the LA Phil's third International Associate Residency at the Barbican, which will include a cross-cultural exchange with young musicians from Great Britain working with Dudamel as part of a national youth orchestra conference.

The participating YOLA alumni are: Isaac Green (bass), 21, senior at California State University Northridge Dalanie Harris (bass), 19, sophomore at Eastman School of Music Beatrice Padilla (violin), 18, freshman at Los Angeles City College Samantha Rosas (viola), 20, sophomore at Sacramento State University

Youth Orchestra Los Angeles (YOLA) is LA Phil Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel's signature initiative through which the LA Phil and community partners provide free instruments, intensive music training, and academic support to students from underserved neighborhoods, empowering them to become passionate learners and vital citizens. Beginning with 80 students in 2007, YOLA today serves nearly 1,000 students studying up to 15 hours per week at four community-based sites where mentorship and leadership training is integral. YOLA students have the opportunity to work with LA Phil musicians and world-renowned artists and conductors, travel to cities foreign and domestic, and perform in iconic venues such as Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl.

YOLA is made possible in South Los Angeles, the Rampart District, Westlake/MacArthur Park, and East Los Angeles through the following community partners that share fiscal and programmatic responsibilities with the LA Phil: EXPO Center, Harmony Project, Heart of Los Angeles, Camino Nuevo Charter Academy and the Los Angeles County Office of Education.