District 6 Arts

A student describes the meaning and manufacture of his mask named, “Questions.”

Two students talk about their masks on Voice Thread. Comments that others make about their masks will also appear here.

The students of Anna Joseph, theatre teacher at Southeast Middle School, perform wearing the masks that they created and express their thoughts about mask making and performing.

Brett Drugge writes, “With the beautiful pink blossoms on the trees at Gage, it reminds me that the Spring season is right around the corner, and so I am writing to get us to start thinking about how we want to approach the initial decision-making steps regarding the possible development of a Spring Arts & Music festival for the school and community, much like the one we had last May 8th, An Evening of Music from the Americas,
which was, according to a lot of the participants and attendees, a successful and engaging event.

The following are requests for your input and ideas:

-Theme. If we get creative and inspiring theme out there, then teachers and students can create projects, art, etc. addressing the theme.

-Sponsors. Local is preferable.

-Main professional attraction concerning music. Last year we had the celebrated group called “Huayacaltia.” Quite a performance. Who can we draw this year? What is budget? Huayacaltia was $600, but worth every penny. Anyone have connections to “Ozomatli”?

A side request:

-The HP Salt Lake Park teen center is a great space for the kids. How do we bridge Gage and the school community to the teen center community and their vision? I think the festival, speech/poetry contests, etc. are our chances to link the two entities or communities together and make the kids aware of the great, positive outlets they have in their community.

I would like to initiate this Blog by featuring one of our star teachers, Ms. Margaret Asato, from Local District 6, Los Angeles Unified School District. I can only describe her Gage Middle School, Music Department, 7^th & 8th Grades, A/B Tracks, Spring Concert last night as a spectacular achievement. If I may speak for our District 6 Superintendent, Mr. Martin Galindo, it was truly an event “About our kids, all our kids.” By “All” I mean her Intermediate/Beginning String Orchestra (38 students), Advanced String Orchestra (41 students), Intermediate String Orchestra (14 students), Senior Band (42 students) and Beginning Winds (34 students) for a grand total of 169 students. Can you imagine 169 urban East Los Angeles (actually in the city of Huntington Park) middle school students all in one confined space for over one hour behaving almost perfectly?

If I may continue with numbers, her program included fifty selections, yes fifty. She showed no fear in showcasing her students in the formative stages of their developing musicianship. The key word in Local District 6 is “formative,” when we talk about assessments. First-year students performed items from the Yamaha Method Book I for winds, or Essential Elements Book I for strings. The Senior String Orchestra tackled the intricacies of the Capriccio Espagnol by Rimsky-Korsakoff, arranged by S. Dackow, an incredible technical achievement for a high school ensemble, let alone a middle school group.

I’m sure that the appreciative audience of parents that filled the Multi-Purpose Hall will long remember the outstanding and captivating performance by Pedro Lumbrano on violin. Ms Asato harbors a love-hate feeling about his energetic style of violin play. On the one hand, it electrifies his audience, on the other, his willful style has worn out the hairs of about seven bows this school year. Pedro is just one of the eleven string students from Gage Middle School who were accepted into the LAUSD Middle School Honors Orchestra this year and performed in the Kodak Theatre, Hollywood, California in May.

A final word about class management, at the end of the concert with parents and their children set to sprint out the door, it took just one firm order from Ms Asato, “All the chairs, stands, and instruments back to the music room,” and, followed by obligatory teen whining, all the chairs and instruments were dutifully removed by both parents and students. Just amazing, my hats off to you Margaret.