On this edition of our show, we speak with Myka Miller, who is a musician, teacher, and self-described (per one online bio) "agent for social change through music." Miller is also the executive director of the Los Angeles-based Harmony Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to music education for young people in low-income communities. Since taking the helm of this nonprofit in 2007, Miller has seen its number of enrolled students expand from 250 to 2,000 in and around Greater Los Angeles. The Harmony Project has been recognized as one of the most effective arts-based youth interventions in the nation --- and it's rooted, at least in part, in the popular and highly successful El Sistema music-education program of Venezuela, which arranges for the teaching of music to 500,000 of that country's most vulnerable children. Miller is visiting our community to plan with members of the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra and other local experts about soon creating a satellite program of the Harmony Project at Tulsa's Kendall-Whittier Elementary School. An exciting development for our city, to be sure --- and yet another example of how well-planned and well-delivered arts education can immediately and incredibly enrich young students' lives.
The Harmony Project: It's Thriving in Los Angeles, and It'll Soon Begin a Satellite Effort in Tulsa
