MISSION AND VISION
MISSION AND VISION
ELM provides youth with an immersive music education and resources that inspire and empower them to pursue their dreams.
We believe:
The values of inclusiveness, equity, and opportunity extend to our entire ELM community: students, families, teaching artists, staff, and volunteers including those with physical and mental disabilities.
Access to mastery in the arts is a right, not a privilege, and talent is equally distributed but opportunity is not. ELM is committed to addressing this inequity.
Participation in collaborative community in which student voice and authentic relationships are valued is key to promoting self-confidence and self esteem.
Every child is a valuable member of our ensembles and our students deserve the best musical training and mentors possible.
While providing a high-quality music education remains our primary activity, we are committed to supporting the social, emotional, and academic well-being of our students.
Providing opportunities for meaningful parental engagement in the ELM community is key to ensuring their children’s long term success and well-being.
OUR STORY
ELM began as a pilot project in 2008 when Executive Director, Jane Kramer Ph.D. received a one-year Time Out grant from Vassar College to “pursue a passion and/or take a risk.” She took a leave of absence from her research position at the University of California, San Francisco Institute for Adolescent Health Policy to focus on her oboe and English horn studies. Returning to music was demanding and exhilarating for Jane, but this opportunity highlighted the disparity in access to high-quality music education for children in her own community.
Rather than continue her research work at UCSF, Jane decided to pursue her lifelong dream to follow in the footsteps of her mentor and role model, Dr. Ruth Greenfield. In the 1950s, Dr. Greenfield started the Miami Fine Arts Conservatory, an accessible and inclusive school of the arts, in (at the time) a segregated Miami, Florida.
Jane purchased 15 soprano recorders, identified elementary school children from the Canal neighborhood in San Rafael, and committed to teaching the students twice a week. Today, those students who started on recorder a decade ago are now graduating from college and “composing” their own lives.
OUR PROGRAM
ELM is a full scholarship, multi-year, intensive program that provides music education, ensemble, and performance opportunities to youth to develop the social, emotional, and academic skills they need to succeed in life.
Programs include chorus, orchestra, chamber music, and parent music groups. In addition to school-year classes, ELM runs a summer camp, concert series, and provides scholarships for private lessons for exceptionally motivated students. There are no financial barriers to participation.
OUR COMMUNITY
ELM serves primarily Latino children and families who live in and attend school in the Canal neighborhood of San Rafael, an area of socioeconomic disadvantage in one of the richest counties in the country. The majority of its residents are Latin American immigrants or first-generation Americans.
While most children who live in the Canal were born in this country, almost all are English Language Learners. Many parents speak little to no English and struggle with social and economic disruption in their lives. For many, concerns about immigration status and fear of deportation, finding consistent work and learning English are omnipresent.
The academic achievement gap between white and Latino students in Marin County is the greatest in the state. ELM addresses this serious equity gap by providing full scholarships and academic support to our students for their entire childhood.
EL SISTEMA
One of the most exciting initiatives in educational reform today hails from Venezuela, where in 1975 economist, composer and conductor Jose Antonio Abreu launched El Sistema, a free program in classical music for children from highly impoverished communities. Now nearly 40 years and 800,000 students later, El Sistema is a world acclaimed program being emulated around the world. Dr. Abreu approached his work as much as a social reformer as much as an advocate for music education, and it is El Sistema's dual foci that propel and sustain the program. El Sistema's mission is not to create professional musicians, but to promote the collective practice of music through symphony orchestras and choruses in order to help youth achieve their full potential and acquire values that have a positive impact on their lives.
