By Gabrielle Molina, Lead Program Consultant, El Sistema USA & Executive Director, Project Music
What happens when 12 high school musicians from across the country don’t just attend a gathering about music education—they lead it? What if the most innovative ideas about community, creativity, and change weren’t being designed in boardrooms by adults, but in rehearsal rooms by teenagers?
This June in Baltimore, we’ll find out.
The El Sistema USA East Coast Regional Gathering flips the traditional script: instead of talking about youth voice, we’re amplifying it. Instead of planning for young people, we’re planning with them.
The Power of Youth at the Helm
The El Sistema USA Youth Ambassador Cohort stands at the heart of this transformation: 12 remarkable high school students selected from across the El Sistema USA network who are expanding the notions of being mere recipients of musical knowledge. Instead, they are actively shaping it.
Now in its third year, the Youth Ambassador program brings together these extraordinary high school musicians who represent the next generation of change makers. These students are not only musically accomplished, but deeply thoughtful about the world around them and their role in shaping it.
These young leaders will do more than perform or participate. They will lead. They’ll facilitate sessions for adult educators, collaborate with Peabody Innovation and Music Academy (PIMA) students, and share insights with educators from across the country. Their leadership doesn’t just reflect El Sistema USA’s values. It defines them.
What happens when we stop seeing young musicians as vessels to be filled and start recognizing them as fountains already overflowing with vision? The East Coast Regional Gathering, supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, aims to answer this question.
A Cohort That Raised the Bar
This year’s selection process was the most rigorous to date, yielding the strongest and largest cohort of submissions we’ve ever seen. As a member of the selection committee, I can confidently say, this was the most inspiring cohort we’ve ever encountered.
We reviewed applications from across the country, each one filled with creativity, a desire for impact, and bold ideas for how music can drive positive social change. During their video submissions and auditions, we heard from students who are mentoring younger peers, launching equity initiatives in their own communities, expanding their creative expression across artistic realms beyond their instruments, and composing original works of music.
Baltimore and Beyond: Creation as Collaboration
I cannot wait to see the cohort in action this June. During the gathering, Youth Ambassadors will lead portions of Collective Composition alongside PIMA campers and visiting students from Sistema-inspired programs like Project Music from Connecticut. This isn’t just about showcasing what they’ve learned during their fellowship over the past semester. It’s about creating new knowledge together.
Their collaboration with PIMA students promises to be more than a project. It’s a model for inter program partnership, mutual learning, and shared creation. Together, students from different cities and contexts will explore what it means to build something with one another, not just for one another.
The collaborative nature of this event breaks down traditional hierarchies. Educators and students will learn with and fromeach other, modeling a more equitable approach to music education that honors the expertise that exists at every level. This gathering isn’t about delivering knowledge top down. It’s about creating the conditions where students and adults alike can stretch, listen, and grow together.
A Revolution in Music Education
What we’re witnessing is nothing short of a small revolution in how we think about music education. The Youth Ambassador program suggests that the future of El Sistema inspired work in the United States must be co created with the very young people it aims to serve.
As bell hooks reminds us, “True education, which is the practice of freedom, is not a process of learning in which we are passive recipients of knowledge but one in which we actively engage, learning through critical thinking and transformative practice.”
When we create spaces where young musicians can lead authentically, we’re not just improving our programs, we’re challenging the status quo – updating traditions that haven’t always put young people at the center. This shift in perspective is exactly what made this year’s selection process both so difficult and so affirming. Choosing between so many capable, visionary young leaders reminds us that the future of music education is already in capable hands. Our job now is to keep clearing the path ahead.
Join Us
If you care about youth leadership, if you believe in the power of music to open hearts and transform systems, I invite you to follow along as this remarkable cohort of Youth Ambassadors demonstrates what’s possible when we truly believe in the capacity of young people to lead. Their work represents not just the future of El Sistema USA, but a more hopeful vision for music education broadly.
We’ll see you in Baltimore.
Each registration includes access to the full two-day event. Registration closes June 5, 2025.
Register here to be part of this transformative gathering.