History is in the lessons

ON A warm afternoon, not long after most students around town have been dismissed for the summer, a group of 20 third-graders sits attentively in a classroom on an otherwise empty campus in the Crenshaw district. Instead of books and desks, they have bows and violins -- a few of them, anyway. The rest improvise, their right hands carefully fingering the length of their left arms as they practice scales and arpeggios on imaginary string instruments.

To mimic the scales, they also sing -- do, re, mi -- with gusto. At points, the gusto gets a bit out of hand, and a few students collapse into giggles or fidget in their chairs. Teacher Anne Rardin grows stern. "You have to learn to sit up and keep your comments to yourself," she tells the students. "You can't do these things if you're going to be in an orchestra." The children fall silent and straighten up. It is their third day of instruction.

Charles Dickerson, watching from the front of the room over his glasses, nods approvingly. Dickerson is the primary music instructor at this school, View Park Preparatory Accelerated Elementary. This is his new gig: For the last four years, he has been music director and conductor of the Southeast Symphony, a historically black community orchestra marking its 60th anniversary this year.

Not that Dickerson, 55, has had much time for reflection. This class is part of a new Southeast venture with View Park Prep to cultivate the next generation of black symphonic musicians, and Dickerson wants to get off on the right foot. The moment is ripe. Late last year, the Los Angeles Philharmonic launched a new youth orchestra initiative -- called Youth Orchestra LA -- with a goal of targeting kids in underserved neighborhoods. With that in mind, Dickerson came to View Park in February at the request of fellow Southeast Symphony member Fernando Pullum, who heads the performing arts for high school grades at another View Park Prep campus and a dozen other charter schools throughout South L.A. run by the Inner City Education Foundation. The foundation has a youth orchestra and is funding the new music program. Teachers and instruments are being provided by the nonprofit Harmony Project.

"We wanted to get kids at a younger age, to intervene early," says Dickerson. Pullum, a trumpet player who built a national reputation as music director at Washington Prep High School in South L.A., says the summer program is teaching 500 students a day, far more than Southeast can reach. "We want to empower people through music, though this is not about music per se," he says. "It's about discipline, practice and focus. We want to take over South-Central one household at a time."