Music for Life

MUSIC FOR LIFE is a music mentorship program that provides New Orleans youth the opportunity to study music intensively in one-on-one and small-group settings with both LPO musicians and peers. We partner with predominantly low-income Title 1 schools with existing music programs. Throughout the school year and during summer sessions, LPO mentors help students learn music theory, instrument technique, and other ways to connect with music and harness the mental, physical, and creative prowess critical to healthy youth development. In addition to weekly mentoring sessions, the LPO offers Music for Life participants and their families access to free musician ensemble performances, free tickets to the LPO Family Concert Series, and a free concert for the Tremé community featuring Music for Life youth musicians. Music for Life students also perform throughout the year at local festivals and other events. Music for Life is made possible through the generosity of the Gia Maione Prima Foundation.

Music for Life takes place at two partner sites around New Orleans:

Homer A. Plessy School uses the Plessy Strings Program to teach not only excellent musicianship but also valuable life skills that are beneficial beyond the music classroom and that work to build community through the process of making music.

Bricolage Academy advances educational equity by preparing students from diverse backgrounds to be innovators who change the world.Bricolage Academy envisions a time when public schools serve the needs of all students—when New Orleans is the world’s premier location for public education and is widely recognized as a world-class city for its creative, cultural and economic leadership.

Music for Life responds to the need for youth in New Orleans to participate in life-affirming, arts-integrated activities that have been proven to benefit children’s cognitive, emotional, and social skills, and to close the student achievement gap. The need for this program was determined after consulting with Tremé community leaders and examining music oriented after-school programming available in the Tremé neighborhood. Music for Life aligns with Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s comprehensive murder reduction strategy, NOLA for Life, and responds to his call to place instruments, instead of guns, in the hands of New Orleans youth. Ultimately, the LPO aims for this program to support civic development through music education and cultural enrichment that will increase the Tremé neighborhood’s vibrancy and livability.

Email Education Coordinator Tori Lambert for more information.