Programs

Centered in practices of relationship, renewal, re-entry, and recovery, Street Symphony presents musical programs in Skid Row built on sustained relationships and partnerships with Skid Row organizations and community individuals.

Drumming in the Parks

Music for the Soul

Music With A Mission

WORKSHOP PROGRAMS

Mission STRINGS

This program will involve weekly gatherings with a committed group of program residents, staff, and teaching artists and musicians from Street Symphony. During the residency, a Street Symphony teaching artist will lead participants in group guitar lessons for the cohort of participants. The workshop will explore different genres and styles of guitar playing, and will feature local guest guitars. The residency will conclude with a concert performed by The Midnight Mission participants and Street Symphony musicians and will include a co-created artistic project created by the teaching artist and participants.

The Midnight Mission: Homeless services in Los Angeles, CA. Founded in 1914, The Midnight Mission has been offering a path to self-sufficiency to men, women, and children experiencing homelessness. For more information please visit The Midnight Mission.

Women’s Voices

Women’s Voices is a 12-week songwriting workshop at Downtown Women’s Center with a committed group of DWC residents, staff, and SS teaching artists and musicians. During the residency, SS teaching artists lead participants in lyric and melody writing to create an original song written by the residents of DWC. Additionally, participants discuss what inspires them and curate a concert of music based on themes of their choice. After six weeks of songwriting workshops and two weeks of combined rehearsals, an all-female musical ensemble from Street Symphony presents a cumulative concert, focusing on music by women composers, and the performance will be capped by the songwriters at DWC performing their original song.

Downtown Women’s Center: Also known as DWC was founded in 1978, is the only organization in Los Angeles focused exclusively on serving and empowering women experiencing homelessness and formerly homeless women. For more information visit Downtown Women’s Center.

Music for Change

Music For Change is a 12- week process group with Weingart Association Reentry Program Supervisors and Street Symphony music facilitators, for clients currently on parole from long term or life sentences from California prisons. Street Symphony Staff share meditative musical offerings to convene vulnerable spaces of community and conversation with a regular cohort of clients. Weingart supervisors facilitate conversations regarding reentry and recovery. Music For Change also includes outdoor programs presented in the Weingart Garden Space as well as the local LA City Parks curated by Skid Row community members who are also in reentry and graduates of the Weingart Center Reentry Program.

Weingart Center: Empowering and transforming lives. A nonprofit agency that provides homeless individuals with the basic tools necessary to stabilize their lives, secure income, and find permanent housing. For more information visit Weingart Center.

FESTIVALS

The Messiah Project

Since 2015, Street Symphony has partnered with The Midnight Mission to host its annual “Messiah Project,” a celebration of the resilience and stories of the Skid Row community. Centered around Handel’s beloved Messiah, The Messiah Project reflects and honors the history of the Messiah as a work of resilience. Handel’s Messiah was written in 1741, and performances during the composer’s life were dedicated to social causes, such as providing relief for incarcerated debtors and orphaned children. Using Handel’s work as the frame for a 90-minute concert event, Street Symphony’s Messiah Project is a modern adaptation of the classic work: presented in the gymnasium of TMM, Messiah Project features professional musicians from the LA Philharmonic and Master Chorale, students from the Colburn School and University of Southern California, and community musicians from Skid Row ensembles.

Block Party

Presented Annually since 2019, Street Symphony has partnered with The Midnight Mission to host its “Block Party”, an open air music festival presented in the heart of Skid Row. “Block Party” features a festival line-up of professional Los Angeles based ensembles, as well as Skid Row community artists, and features a diverse range of musical traditions, from Mariachi, Reggae, Rock and Roll, Afro-Cuban, Traditional West African Drumming, Jazz, and Classical. In addition to the musical performances, “Block Party” includes a lunch service for around 2000 individuals, and hosts Skid Row community provider and arts agency pop ups.