Executive Director’s Report, FY2018, Q1

January 1 – March 31

The following report highlights activities undertaken by PRAA during the first quarter of
FY18:

I. LATIN MUSIC PROJECT (LMP)

a. Program Lessons : (Cuatro, Spanish Guitar, and Violin) [JOSE AND
ZABDIEL]
In January we started the spring program in which we were able to
recruit over 20 students for our classes. Added with the students already
taking classes from the fall program, we have a total of 78 students
attending lessons at LMP. We added Kevin Toler to teach the new spring
guitar class. For Little Genius class we hired Florina Cupsa who was
already teaching with us at Stowe. 9 different sessions of violin, guitar &
cuatro lessons are being held in our new space on the 2nd floor of the U.S.
Bank in 2 different rooms and we are in the process of preparing a 3rd
room for lessons. We started the year off teaching at 7 CPS schools. As
spring started we added Monroe to our spring schools and started a
partnership with ASPIRA to add up to a total of 9 schools. Currently we
partner with Azuela, Belmont Cragin, Edwards, Madero, Monroe,
Columbia Explorer, Stowe, Mary Lyon & ASPIRA. In total we are teaching
almost 500 students.
In Mary Lyon, we completed successfully our 8 week program and held
a concert in the school auditorium where we had a full house with
students from 7th & 8th grade. Among the people attending we had All of
the 7th & 8th grade students and teachers as well as the school principal
Mr. Gabor. We are currently preparing to perform our achievement
concert at LMP for LMP students and our end of year CPS concert at
Roberto Clemente High School.

b. Latin Music Project Parent Committee [JOSE AND ZABDIEL]

Our new staff person, Steph Meza has helped us organize and begin
having monthly meetings with parents. In the past meeting we discussed
logistics of upcoming events, sort out chaperones, who will handle food
as well as organize a list of all upcoming 20th anniversary activities and
performances in which they will be involved. Parents are in the process of
meeting with Juan Mendez to discuss scholarships for the ensemble
members.

c. Latin Music Project Ensemble [JOSE AND ZABDIEL]

The LMPE has continued to update it’s repertoire to include different
types of latin music and sound more like an original group. We have
received the opportunity to do a simple recording at Harold Washington
 College and the main focus has been starting to work on new music just
for that. In a partnership with the Lyric Opera, renown director of the
Purto Rico symphony orchestra Roselin Pabon, young cuatrista Carlos
Cabrera and guitarist Hermelindo Ruiz will be visiting the LMP in the near
future to provide a masterclass that will benefit all of the students at
LMP. Since we are celebrating PRAA 20th anniversary the ensemble has a
good amount of performances coming up including Earth Day at
Humboldt Park, Harold Washington College Music Festival, Youth
Performance Showcase at Navy Pier among others.

d. Spring Latin Music Program [JOSE AND ZABDIEL]

Spring session has started at LMP and we opened a new violin and guitar
session. Classes are being held on evenings from Monday through
Wednesday. Currently we are running various weekly lessons including
our violin, guitar & cuatro classes for beginning and intermediate
students as well as 2 weekly rehearsals of the LMPE. Our current
enrollment is almost 80 students attending our weekly sessions.

e. Other [JOSE AND ZABDIEL]

We have a new staff person Steph Meza joining the LMP, helping out
with different tasks such as organizing the space, updating inventory,
making phone calls to schools & parents and taking pictures of different
activities related to LMP such as classes and concerts. There has been
more presence of the LMP in social media including short clips of
rehearsals and pictures of the work we are doing.