Culver City’s Symphonic Jazz Orchestra Holds Workshops for Local Elementary Students

What do you get when you bring children, musical instruments and professional musicians together? A rollicking great time.

Culver City Unified School District Elementary school students have been undertaking workshops with members of Culver City’s very own Symphonic Jazz Orchestra (SJO) in conjunction with the Los Angeles County Arts Educational Program.

The workshops are led by SJO’s Music Directors George Duke and Mitch Glickman, and introduce Elementary school students to the instruments of the orchestra. The four-session, hour-long workshops also allow the kids to play a variety of woodwind, string, brass and percussion instruments. All the Rico Reeds woodwind instruments are funded thanks to a donation from the D’Addario Music Foundation.

The program combines a half-hour concert by a string quartet, brass and woodwind quintets, and a percussion group followed by rotations where the students get to try the instruments they just heard including violin, cello, trumpet, trombone, flute, clarinet, saxophone and percussion.

For those students who get the music bug, it’s the perfect launching pad for them to join their school’s band or orchestra program.

As part of the California Arts Council’s “Artists-in-School” program, over 1,300 Elementary school students are receiving sequential, comprehensive music education taught by members of the SJO. The program, funded by grants from the California Arts Council, Feinshreiber Foundation, and the Culver City Education Foundation, provides music education classes for five public schools in the Culver City Unified School District.

The SJO is able to offer music programs for 2nd grade students; a weekly residency program for 1st grade students and an Instrumental workshop program for 3rd Grade students that has been active at CCUSD Elementary schools for the last six years.

The SJO is, a nonprofit organization and is the only organization of its kind in the country, dedicated to blending the worlds of jazz and classical music. In its 10-year history, the SJO has served over 27,500 young people and their families through its education and community outreach programs.

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