Founded in 2011, Street Symphony has presented over 900 free, powerful musical events and workshops to Los Angeles communities disenfranchised by homelessness, poverty, and incarceration. Street Symphony presents regular events at Skid Row clinics and homeless shelters, permanent supportive housing agencies, and LA County Jails. Performance occurs on a monthly basis at 5 partner venues: The Midnight Mission, Downtown Women’s Center, The Weingart Center in Skid Row, PATH (People Assisting The Homeless) Community facilities, and education-based incarceration programs at 4 Los Angeles County Jail facilities. Street Symphony presents over 90 world-class events per year, reaching up to 10,000 people who would not have access to concert halls or public venues. The Street Symphony model of community engagement has been lauded as a new, radical model of how artistic institutions can authentically and equitably engage communities around them.
Over the years, Street Symphony programs have moved from ‘outreach’ to authentic, mutual engagement, creating spaces of cultural exchange and vitality with communities too-often relegated to the margins of society. Street Symphony programs are designed to create authentic connections, and a restorative lifeline, through the power of music.