Honors Music Concerts Could Face Budget Cuts in 2008-09

For honors music students throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), it’s the biggest day of the year and likely marked on their calendars.

It’s the culmination of hundreds of hours of rehearsal designed to refine their craft. It’s also the opportunity for young people to display their musical and vocal talents in front of family, teachers and their own peers. More importantly, it’s a chance for students to prove to themselves that the hard work had paid off.

For many music students, performing at LAUSD’s Elementary School Honors Music Concert, “Accent on Performance,” or the Middle School Honors Music Concert, “Symphony and Song,” must feel like taking the stage at Carnegie Hall.

Last year, both of these music festivals faced the District’s budget chopping block. For students, the highlight of their musical year and the “X” on their calendar was being threatened.  For the Los Angeles Board of Education, it needed to make $100 million in budget cuts and both honors music concerts seemed like a good place to start.

However, dozens of music teachers, parents and student musicians converged on a Board of Education meeting late last year to make their case. Each made impassioned pleas to preserve both concerts, which provide a venue to showcase student talent. Their words sounded like music to the Board, which unanimously reinstated both programs for the 2007-08 school year.

“This is by far one of my personal favorite LAUSD activities,” said Los Angeles Board of Education member Julie Korenstein.  “I am very pleased that we were able to bring this wonderful program back to the District this year and I hope with the unfortunate budget cuts we will be able to guarantee that this program will continue.”

LAUSD recently hosted both music concerts, the elementary school concert at Luckman Fine Arts Complex on the campus of California State University, Los Angeles, followed soon after by the middle school show at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood.

With students performing everything from Bach to Beethoven, both concerts combined attracted more than 4,000 family members and friends, and 715 honors music students representing each of the LAUSD’s eight Local Districts.

As students played and sang their hearts out, no one needed to count the smiles of proud parents or the tears that flowed during both shows.

In 2008-09, both honors concerts could face the music once again. Unless the LAUSD is able to secure additional revenue—parents, student musicians and music teachers may need an encore performance in front of the Board of Education to save the concerts one more time.