In Oregon, a More Neighborly Approach Brings Joy

 
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In Oregon, a More Neighborly Approach Brings Joy

Neal Spinler, Executive Director, BRAVO Youth Orchestras

09-03-2025

BRAVO and JOY at BRAVO Jubilee. Photo: David Kinder.

This past May, a magical experience occurred here in Oregon, the US state just north of California. All three of the state’s El Sistema-inspired organizations shared the stage for one concert, with two of the three performing side by side. It was the culmination of a year of planning, collaboration, and celebration.

I joined the Portland organization BRAVO Youth Orchestras in March 2024. Founded in 2013, BRAVO was the state’s first El Sistema USA organization—but I was pleased to learn that it was not the last. The Junior Orchestra of Yamhill (JOY) also operates in Oregon, serving students all across Yamhill County. JOY’s Program Manager Amy Brunner and I soon found ourselves meeting over coffee, where the idea of a collaborative concert first popped up. A couple of months and 2,000 miles of driving later, we found ourselves at the El Sistema USA conference in Indianapolis, Indiana, where the idea fully blossomed.

BRAVO intermediate students at BRAVO Jubilee. Photo: David Kinder.

It’s important to understand Oregon’s geography and the regions each organization serves. The state is vast and sparsely populated. The majority of the population is in Portland, at the northern border, with most everybody else residing along the “I5 Corridor”—Interstate 5, a major north-south highway that runs from Portland to California. BRAVO serves a region at the very northern tip of Portland; JOY serves students in Yamhill County. North Portland is a diverse blue-collar area with shipyards, warehouses, and port terminals; Yamhill County is the heart of Oregon’s famed Willamette Valley, a region known best for its fabulous wineries. But while the county boasts fancy vineyards and tasting rooms, it is also filled with farms and the hardworking farmhands and families.

Though our two programs are just 46 miles apart, our landscapes could not be more different. Yet the work we do could not be more aligned.

Over the course of a year, our two organizations met virtually at least once a month. We decided to hold two concerts: a JOY concert featuring BRAVO guests and a BRAVO concert featuring JOY guests. Teaching artists from each organization handled the programming side of things, creating a shared Google folder and populating it with music suggestions, rehearsal schedules, and concert ideas. They decided who would conduct, which students would travel and perform, and how each day would operate.

This project was a push for each program and tested the limits of both students and teaching artists. However, we always viewed it as an opportunity to learn. No two Sistema-inspired programs are exactly the same, despite our mission alignment—each has distinct teaching styles, supports different communities, and creates its own organizational culture. Amy and I viewed this as a chance for the students and the organizations to grow. BRAVO’s younger students were not as advanced as some of their JOY peers, due to differences in available class time, so the concerts gave our younger students the chance to see what is possible. Meanwhile, the students of JOY, a strings program, experienced playing with winds students for the first time.

Above all, students from both areas learned that their situations are not greater or less than anyone else’s—just different. It was especially exciting to see the BRAVO students stop in their tracks when they entered the performance hall for the JOY concert. A college auditorium and stage is much bigger than a small elementary stage that doubles as a cafeteria!

Play It Forward student at BRAVO Jubilee. Photo: David Kinder.

I also invited another Portland organization, the piano and guitar program Play It Forward, to showcase their students in a guest performance, as they had recently joined the El Sistema USA network. Our idea over coffee had grown into a fully realized snapshot of three neighboring music programs at three distinct phases of life.

Most recently, we presented our JUBILEE! concerts to celebrate all of our students, along with El Sistema Venezuela’s 50th anniversary. Nearly a year of planning resulted in a beautiful display of collaboration. BRAVO is fortunate to employ and befriend local Venezuelan musicians who grew up in El Sistema Venezuela. To honor a legacy that runs from South America to Oregon (and beyond!), we invited them to share the stage with their music, and we featured them in videos that told their stories. It was a celebration of José Antonio Abreu’s vision to change lives through music.

We learned many lessons from collaborating with our neighbors: Start planning early. Stay open-minded. Embrace the uncertainty. Don’t be afraid to learn, even if you are a teacher or a leader. As the oldest Sistema program of the three, we at Bravo might have been in a position to dictate the collaborative process, but that would have meant losing out on JOY’s wealth of institutional knowledge. Instead, we listened to each other’s learning, and the results were all the more beautiful for it.

Most of all, we had fun. There is power in music and strength in community. I encourage other organizations to reach out to your peers. Work together; perform together. Show your students they are part of something big. Then: pause, take a break, and do it again.

The challenges exist—distance, teaching styles, experience levels. But they’re worth taking on. We need each other, and these collaborations remind us we’re not doing it alone. 

View performances from the JUBILEE! concerts on BRAVO’s website.

BRAVO Youth Orchestras, Community Building, Concert Collaboration, Cultural Exchange, Educational Innovation, El Sistema, El Sistema Legacy, ESUSA, Guitar Education, Jose Antonio Abreu, JOY, Jubilee Concerts, Junior Orchestra Of Yamhill, Music and Community, Music Education, Music for Social Change, Music Programs, Neal Spinler, Oregon, Organizational Partnership, Peer Learning, Performance Experience, Piano Education, Play It Forward, Portland, September 2025, Strings Education, Student Collaboration, Student Growth, Student Inspiration, Teacher Collaboration, Teaching Artists, Venezuelan Musicians, Willamette Valley, Winds Education, Yamhill County

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