Beginning at the end of January, LAJS Teaching Artists Shira Adler, Andrea Comsky, Chris Hardin and Leslie Lashinsky will visit the participating schools to begin a four-week journey into the world of Sephardic music, history, and culture. Each week, a different aspect of Sephardic music will be uncovered by the students and their Teaching Artist. The students will have the opportunity to create their own Sephardic music composition in the form of artwork which will closely parallel the components of a typical Sephardic musical work. By doing this, each student will see the music through the composer's eyes, thus bringing their own understanding to a new level. At the end of the four weeks, the participating students and their teachers will attend a live Los Angeles Jewish Symphony performance of the works studied.

At this time, over 700 students, mainly 4th graders, from 14 Jewish Day Schools will participate in our Sephardic Music Education Project. We are pleased to welcome these students and their teachers from Adat Ari El, Emek Hebrew Academy, Harkham Hillel Hebrew Academy, Maimonides Academy, Malibu Jewish Center and Synagogue, Kadima Hebrew Academy, Pressman Academy, Sinai Akiba Academy, Ohr Eliyahu Academy, Stephen S. Wise Day School, Temple Israel of Hollywood, Valley Beth Shalom, West Valley Hebrew Academy, and Etz Jacob Hebrew Academy to our educational family this year.

Due to the large number of students involved this time around, we will have two culminating concerts, one on Friday, March 31, at 10:30 a.m., at Stephen S. Wise, and the other on Friday, April 7, at 10:00 a.m., for the students from the Orthodox schools. We would again like to thank the Maurice Amado Foundation for their extreme generosity and for making this program a possibility once more.