EMPOWER.

ELM cello player and sophomore at San Rafael High, Dulce Solis will attend a two-day symposium focusing on youth leadership and strategies for empowering the next generation of music leaders.

ELM was highlighted in Marin Magazine’s “Marin Gives Back 2023” feature, along with other local nonprofits making a difference in Marin!

NFL Hall-of-Famer Ronnie Lott and Oakland musical legend Sheila E. launched the music education program for emerging artists in partnership with Elevate Oakland.

Bay Area icon Sheila E. is part of a new music education and emerging artists program hoping to guide the next generation of Bay Area artists.

ELM was voted as one of the best in Marin County for educational nonprofits.

ELM spoke with Pacific Sun Magazine about how our program empowers students to shape their own futures.

ABC7 Bay Area news came to visit ELM students rehearsing a special piece called The Mix of the Culturas which combines traditional movements of a symphony with Latin-infused rhythms.

ELM was featured in the December issue of the San Francisco Classical Voice, a nonprofit newsletter for that fosters a thriving arts community.

ELM was featured in this December’s Marin Gives Back feature with other local organizations like Marine Mammal Center, Canal Alliance, and Vivalon.

The inaugural benefit gala featuring Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir will celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sweetwater Music Hall on November 17. The event will have a live auction to raise funds for its new foundation Sweetwater Music Hall Arts Fund. A portion of the proceeds will go to support ELM’s scholarship fund.

Over the summer, Enriching Lives through Music, a 2021 Giving Marin grant recipient, partnered with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra to co-host their second annual Summer Chamber Music Camp. For two weeks, students met everyday to rehearse in small chamber music groups.

This winter, 14 middle and high school students have been working on a special project, titled Reflections on Resilience. For these students who are on a special track called elmCATS (Community of Artists, Teachers and Scholars), an accelerated program for select ELM students who exhibit exceptional commitment and talent, this project has been a wonderfully challenging, rewarding undertaking.

ELM got a shout-out in a recent interview with Lucasfilm’s Doug Chiang. Doug and his wife Liz are big supporters of ELM’s work in the community.

It’s been a tough two years on all of us but especially hard on our school-aged children.

As concertmaster and first chair of the Marin Symphony Youth Orchestra, 17-year-old Nicolas Lau has not forgotten that most of his growing list of musical accomplishments sprang from one low-key program in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood, Enriching Lives through Music.

Marin’s high school seniors start their college applications this fall. Arts equity programs have helped Marin’s low income Latinx immigrant students reach for top colleges. Jane thinks these students will realize their dreams.

Our tutor coordinator (and music education major at NYU), Viviana Garcia was interviewed at WithItGirl, a platform that amplifies the voices, visions, and ideas of women in surf, skate, and art cultures founded by ELM advisor, Marialidia Marcotulli.

ELM was featured in this month's edition of Marin Magazine. It tells our story of being nimble and thoughtful in our efforts to support our community during the pandemic.

Derek Wilson, reporter with Marinscope, wrote a thoughtful piece this month about ELM featuring interviews with Executive Director, Jane Kramer and ELM graduate, Eduardo Mejia.

At a time when fear stalks immigrant communities across the country, young Hispanic musicians from San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood and from a Central Valley farm town came together in a Marin recording studio to proudly celebrate their shared culture and heritage, playing mariachi music for a new album that will be showcased at a CD release concert this weekend.

Smiling students and teachers with Enriching Lives through Music poured out of the brightly colored van parked outside of the Marin Community Foundation last month. They’d arrived to perform a special concert for MCF staff in appreciation of a dream come true…

An instrumental ensemble featuring six of the original students in the Enriching Lives Through Music (ELM) program in the Canal Neighborhood of San Rafael showed how far they’ve come as musicians over the past decade, turning in a dynamic performance of classical music in the IJ Lobby Lounge…

In this issue, we celebrate Spring! It’s been an energizing few months, welcoming new faculty into our community, celebrating student milestones, and gathering together for moments that remind us just how special this community is.

In this issue we highlight our Winter Concerts, our very first Holiday Fair and our Volunteer Spotlight Joan Emery.

As we settle into our new home at 2960 Kerner Boulevard, the phrase Welcome Home has never felt more meaningful or joyful. 

It seems as if everywhere we turn these days there are challenges. Yet in the midst of these challenges and disappointments there is a bubbling energy at ELM.

Our ELM parents/board members Laura Llerena and Rosa Gonzalez have reignited our parent engagement activities, Dulce, our cello student, went to the Peabody Conservatory this summer as a national youth ambassador in our El Sistema movement, and we will celebrate our ELM graduating seniors at the Spring concert.

February 2025 - In this issue, we bring you exciting news–we have purchased a home of our own. We also celebrate our successful winter concert, and introduce our new clarinet teacher, Lindsey Ha.

In our October issue of our News & Notes, we welcome two new faculty members, interview an ELM student who completed an internship with the SF Park Conservancy, and share information about our first annual ELM Family Fiesta.

ELM concluded our 2023-2024 season with a performance of our most ambitious repertoire and level of artistry to date. This continued musical growth is a direct result of the dedication, attention to detail, and high expectations of our students held by our ELM teaching artists.

ELM’s Executive Director, Jane Kramer, recently traveled to Venzuela to attend the El Sistema World Congress, along with musicians, visionaries, and teaching artists from over 20 other countries.

Read about Jane’s trip to Venezuela and more in our latest ELM Notes Newsletter.

ELM students had an exciting past few months. They camped in the Sonoma redwoods, backpacked in Colorado, and so much more. Read about all their summer highlights in our September newsletter!

Enjoy the latest issue of ELM Notes, which includes an interview with Veronica Martinez, mom of one of ELM's graduating seniors, updates on our students’ spring activities, and clips from our spring concert.

We know that deep engagement in music is life-changing and it doesn’t get much better than playing music with a loving and supportive community throughout one’s childhood. ELM friends become a second family and ELM’s warm, colorful space is truly a second home for our community.

It is just halfway into September but ELM is already in full swing. With our fantastic new conductor, Juan Palacios (see his interview with Kate Fitzsimmons in this edition of our newsletter), ELM students are starting the year strong, motivated, and inspired.

One more academic year has come to a close and we have much to be grateful for. Our kids are growing up. I never cease to be amazed by our students’ extraordinary attributes. As a group they are kind, compassionate, wickedly intelligent, thoughtful, and so courageous.

Adam Grant’s recent TED talk about finding meaning and joy, even in the most challenging times, resonated deeply with me and I believe our ELM community provides many of these sustaining features.

In this talk, he described three conditions that he believes contribute to well-being: mastery, mindfulness and mattering.

After 18 months of remote learning, we were overjoyed to welcome our students back to Kerner this summer. Seeing them with smiles; greeting one another with cellos and trombones, violins and clarinets in tote, was heartwarming beyond words. 

Over the past year, sequestered at home during the pandemic, ELM embarked on our most ambitious project ever: elmCATS.

Our elmCATS (which stands for Community of Artists, Teachers, and Scholars) program was designed for students who show extraordinary dedication to their music practice, commitment to their peers, and desire to improve the community. 

We are pleased to announce that Viviana Garcia, a violin intern since she was a senior in high school and now a junior at New York University, won the recent Heart of Marin Award for Volunteer of the Year.