Expansion of programs for Spanish language communities and students

K-12 STEAM education

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

In the performing arts there’s a contrast between the haves and have nots. Opera and symphony populate public venues downtown. Other genres are relegated elsewhere. The Soraya defies this antiquated model. Here, all art forms and audiences co-exist. Nothing is so effective in building social capital than sharing an armrest with a stranger at a concert. The Soraya’s K-12 arts education programs serve over X local schools annually, most of which are Title 1. CSUN, where The Soraya is located, is one of the top Hispanic Serving Institutions in the U.S. In the San Fernando Valley 42% of total population is Hispanic or Latino. The Soraya thrives in this environment, inspiring intergenerational participation in the arts. Now, with the advent of permanent in-house streaming infrastructure and a dual-language website, The Soraya is poised to scale up its impact in the LatinX communities, including reaching an even greater number of K-12 schools.

The Soraya has doubled its jazz audiences in the past 3 years with live-streaming. These are extensive 8-10 camera shoots with interviews and other extras. In the coming year, The Soraya will do the same for its “Hecho en las Americas” series, including Spanish language hosts and interviews. This includes the annual holiday spectacular Nochuebuena, now in its 9th year. In the educational space, The Soraya expands its Artist Leadership Series to include 3 Spanish-speaking artists. This series of educational programs made a unique impact in the pre-pandemic years, bringing world renowned artists into classrooms with CSUN students to explore how artists can play a major role in public leadership - on behalf of local communities (e.g. jazz artist Terence Blanchard in New Orleans), on the national stage (e.g. composer and recording artist Antonio Sanchez in the wake of the 2016 election), and on behalf of civil rights and social justice worldwide (e.g. Susana Baca, renowned Peruvian musician and activist for women’s rights across South America). This series served as an inspiration to students from every corner of campus – from the Honors program to the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). Upcoming, in 2024-25, The Soraya will resume the Leadership series, conducting half of the series in English and half in Spanish. Both versions will be live-streamed and distributed afterward.

In many venues, LatinX populations are left behind. The Soraya’s artists represent a mix of cultures to ensure that the diverse and underserved populations of the Valley see themselves reflected on our stage. Cultivating future audiences to sustain the arts in LA is one goal, but more so, our abiding commitment is that the arts act as a public service to enhance education, community and civic engagement, cultural understanding, and a sense of place and pride.
Following the pandemic, these values are more important than ever, and if The Soraya is the leader in this effort, other arts organizations will follow. With live-streaming, the vision is to not merely to bring artists into people’s homes, but more so the promise is to bring performances into schools, hospitals, detention centers, and other public locations, building new audiences by overcoming the constraints of geography and economics, and creating easy-access low-cost/free programs.

Every three years, The Soraya engages Webb Mgmt to conduct an in-depth study of The Soraya’s demographics. This study will be renewed in 2024-25. Past studies have shown a doubling, over 6 years of LatinX audiences as a percentage of the entire audience. Since 2021, live-stream audiences have doubled overall participation/viewership of jazz performances. These participation numbers are strong indicators, but are not sufficient, especially to understand education impacts. In collaboration with CSUN’s Eisner College of Education, The Soraya will commence more in-depth evaluation in four areas:
· Teacher-led measurements of the incremental value of Soraya programs to lesson planning and progress in educational goals;
· Longitudinal outcomes for schools that participate annually;
· Key social outcomes such as multi-generational family engagement and cross-cultural understanding;
· Long-term participation in the arts, independent from school-based programs.