Peace4Youth Camerata's Middle School Ed Program

Long Beach Camerata Singers (LBCS) is the professional choral organization serving Long Beach. This year's Long Beach Gives campaign is dedicated to our Peace4Youth (P4Y) education program, serving LBUSD Middle Schools.   This program gives young choral students the opportunity to participate in three weeks of workshops, learning music rooted in social-justice themes, and culminating in a joint concert with LBCS, performed in an assembly for their peers.

Peace4Youth delivers socially-relevant, diverse and meaningful choral experiences to LBUSD students. Through workshops, performances, and curriculum, Peace4Youth nurtures creative expression, emotional development, and builds long-term capacity for arts-based education in schools.  

In the workshops, students explore composers, performance practices, and thematic content that connect music to broader social and cultural contexts. This extends arts learning and reinforces the value of music for exploring identity, justice, and community. They  participate in guided discussions to analyze music and its relevance to their lives. They develop a concert narration script to reflect their voices and insights. This nurtures reflection, teamwork and confidence -- skills that extend beyond the classroom.

The program increases student participation via the culminating school-wide assembly which features a joint performance by LBCS and students, Each piece is introduced by a different student, using their workshop narration. These performances provide a high-quality arts experience that is inclusive and empowering, inviting students to take center stage and speak through music.

The assembly/performance concludes with a Q&A session with LBCS singers from diverse professional and personal backgrounds. These interaction introduce students to different artistic pathways. Stories include a studio vocalist featured on Disney's Encanto, a neurodivergent soprano whose love of music shaped her self-expression, and an amateur alto who balances a career in engineering with lifelong singing. These real-life examples illustrate how music can shape a personal or professional path.

By working with students at this critical age, Peace4Youth supports early exposure, sustained interest, and long-term growth in arts participation—helping youth develop creative identities and a lasting connection to the arts, whether as a career or a lifelong passion.

Peace4Youth has been serving LBUSD students since 2019.