The Opus Project

By starting student-centered and folding in supporting stakeholders – including teachers, schools, parents, and the broader community – SDYS uses a systemic approach that takes the entire school ecosystem into account and engages it through wrap-around activities.

The Opus Project Today

This season marks the 11-year anniversary of the Community Opus Project. Over 100 of its past musicians are now learning in SDYS’ Conservatory programs on weekends in Balboa Park. Opus’ co-founder musicians, who were in third grade in 2010, are in college and the Chula Vista Elementary School District (CVESD) now offers music education to over 20,000 students at 32 schools.

With the continued reinstatement of music education in CVESD, SDYS has refocused energy and impact into developing new programs, advocating for quality music education, sharing knowledge, and releasing ownership of programs to district-hired music teachers and school sites. By starting student-centered and folding in supporting stakeholders—including teachers, schools, parents, and the broader community—SDYS uses a systemic approach that takes the entire school ecosystem into account and engages it through wrap-around activities. This helps to ensure student success — artistically, academically and socio-emotionally.

SDYS partners with CVESD sites to establish or strengthen instrumental music programs, then nurtures each school partner through a series of developmental phases as programs grow. This allows individual campuses to “graduate” from SDYS support over time — thereby building a self-sustaining program with a greater sense of community ownership and allowing SDYS to re-allocate resources to where other needs exist in CVESD.

SDYS now provides after-school instrumental music instruction at six sites, four of which are engaged in that multi-year ownership transition.

The History

San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory (SDYS) believes every student deserves music education for the lifetime of joy it provides and the habits, skills, and traits students acquire that will improve their academic, personal, and professional lives. Unfortunately, public school budget cuts have made it inaccessible for many students. Determined to use its resources to reverse that trend, in 2010 SDYS adopted a long-term vision of “making music education accessible and affordable for all.” To achieve this goal, it launched the Community Opus Project to demonstrate the positive effects of learning music by providing free after school music instruction, engaging the parents, educating the community, and persuading school districts to reinstate district-wide music instruction.

For the pilot program, SDYS partnered with the Chula Vista Elementary School District, which had not provided school-day music instruction for more than 15 years. SDYS began by providing free after school instrumental instruction to 65 third-graders at two schools. The positive effects on the students were apparent so quickly that in 2013 CVESD committed to reinstating in-school music instruction so that all of its nearly 30,000 students would be able to learn music and arts in school.

SDYS, CVESD and other local partners continue to collaborate to make high-quality music instruction available for all students. Students, families and other residents from all parts of Chula Vista will come together around the shared joy of learning, performing and experiencing beautiful music. For more information about our Opus Project, contact Brianda Felix, Community Program Coordinator, at bfelix@sdys.org.