Mission

To ignite passion for music in all its forms. Through creation, study, performance and exposure to professional musicians, Excelsus provides rich musical life experiences for school age children and music lovers everywhere.


History

A message from the President: Vision, Focus and Performance

How do I put into words the concept, vision and reality that has become Excelsus? I suppose I will need to go back several years into my history to begin the birthing story. In 1999 I was teaching music at Westerly School in Long Beach and they had a wonderful annual program called the Sonja Berggren Seaver Symposium for the Arts. Each year this Symposium brought professional musicians, artists, writers or actors on campus to guide EVERY student in the school through the process of creating art in various forms. While I was there the projects included a school-wide mural and student written plays on social justice issues. Anxious to have my chance to be a part of this, I asked Sonja when it was our turn to have a Symposium focusing on music. She said that we could participate next and, knowing my love for opera, suggested we write one of our own. In the excitement of the moment (mixed with my naiveté on what was involved) I immediately said, "YES!"

Two years later we had, Sergio! The Magic Sweatshirt, a 65 minute commissioned piece in which all 175 students helped develop the characters and synopsis, compose musical themes, design and create the costumes, build the sets and perform the opera (both vocally and instrumentally) to 3 sold-out shows. I will not spend the next 6 pages telling you all of the wonderful things I learned but I will share with you the underlying truth that launched Excelsus: “When professional artists intertwine their gifts and their passions through collaboration they give students life changing experiences no one artist could do alone."

This experience and lesson was to be the foundation for Excelsus, in fact, collaborating is so powerful and fundamental to us that we put it in our name: Excelsus Music COLLABORATORS. With the help of Sonja Berggren Seaver, we formed our mission: To ignite passion for music in all its forms. Through creation, study, performance and exposure to professional musicians, Excelsus provides rich musical life experiences for school age children and music lovers everywhere.

With that decided, we then needed to think of HOW? I turned to my wife Lisa for help on the incorporation process and she not only did all of the legal work herself, she got Excelsus their IRS Determination letter in a record-breaking 3 months! While Lisa was getting us incorporated I spent a great deal of time talking to area music teachers, musicians and parents to determine what their needs were. I then started thinking of what we could offer Long Beach that would fulfill both our mission and their musical needs.

With the help of writer, Martha Cook, and graphics designer, Nancy Pinckert, our program ideas took written and printed form. We hosted our first Salon in December and “unveiled” Excelsus to our family and friends. The result of that first event was overwhelming support with energy and encouragement to move forward with programs in January, 2004.

6 months after the decision to form Excelsus we had children in programs! Our after school classes at Lowell Elementary were a success and the Student Olé programs began enriching the lives of over 150 students! Not all of our envisioned Programs had taken form yet, however, looking back at all we accomplished in the first 12 months I felt more encouraged and confident than ever that we were providing a much need service to our community.


At our height we have over 800 students experiencing music through our Programs each week and I am humbled to be part of such a passionate and gifted Faculty. We remain fervently committed to providing the highest quality programs possible and I am very grateful for the support that so many of you have shown to make that a reality. I am eagerly looking forward to the years ahead!

~ Jen Mariska Pratt