Meet Charles Dickerson | Executive Director and Conductor, Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles

We had the good fortune of connecting with Charles Dickerson and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Charles, maybe we can start at the very start – the idea – how did you come up with the idea for your business?
During late spring of 2009, a high-school aged African-American musical instrumentalist asked me to work with him and group of his compatriots that summer learning orchestral performance repertoire. He asked me because, at the time, I was the conductor of a professional African-American orchestra. I agreed to work with him and his group. He brought eight others, and we began rehearsals. By the end of the summer, our group had grown to 24, and we presented a concert/recital that was attended by about 200 people. It went so well that, after the concert, the youngsters in the group asked me if we could continue. I said yes, and we have now grown to an annual group of about 100 youngsters. We present a series of concerts throughout the year that concludes with a Grand Finale at the Walt Disney Concert Hall every year. We have international recognition, and we are now the largest African-American orchestra in the United States. The idea for this did not come from me. It was inspired by these nine high school instrumentalists who asked me to work with them. Please see www.icyola.org, and please also see the following links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NJQnb2eUlQ, and https://issuu.com/muphiepsilon/docs/trianglewinter114032021_web_copy (please see pages 20-28).

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I am the Conductor of the largest African-American orchestra in the United States. We are particularly unique because there is no other orchestra African-American orchestra in the United States that presents a regular concert season. We are unique because no other youth orchestra boasts the number of persons of color – Black or otherwise – as we do. We perform the regular orchestral canon – without abridgments, modifications or simplifications. We now also have a special program to prepare youngsters from historically underrepresented communities to take and win auditions in American orchestras. What I am most excited about is the values that we instill in the youngsters who we are privileged to work with, and how those values help them to be excellent people. For example, we instill the discipline of practice and the pursuit of excellence in all that we do; we instill the value of self-evaluation and the pursuit of high standards through regular practice; we instill self-confidence and self-respect as we perform throughout our community. These values are important for successful and excellent musicianship. But they are also transferable into other aspects of life for those who will not pursue music as a career. I began piano lessons when I was 3 years old. I took up trumpet in the 5th grade. I sang in my high school chorus. After pursuing other studies as an undergraduate in college, I returned and received a Masters Degree in Conducting. I have conducted church choirs since about 1975. No, it wasn’t easy. Music is a life-long process of practice, learning and performance. The process for overcoming challenges – in much and otherwise – is to consistently repeat your work, refining it as you go and comparing it with that of others, until your work shines brightly – not as measured by you or even amateurs, but by professionals. Lessons learned? All of us can achieve success if we are willing to put in the work. As was said by Thomas Edison, genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Same is true success. What I want the world to know about our brand and story is that any discipline can be used as a conduit to build strong, productive people. We have used music – and specifically, classical orchestral music as the conduct. People have observed what we do, that we do it with a high degree of excellence, and that the youngsters who are a part of our program are better because of it. Regardless of what you do, whether it be music, chemistry, construction or poetry, it can be used to make our world a better place, and to make those of us within it better people.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Walt Disney Concert Hall, Dodger Stadium, The Hollywood Bowl, Griffith Park Observatory, Santa Monica Pier, Disneyland, Sunset Strip, Old Town Pasadena, Universal Studios, Warner Brothers Studios, the Beach. Where to eat and hang out? Parker’s Lighthouse in Long Beach, Il Fornaio Tratorria in Santa Monica, Restaurants at Terranea Resort, Drago Central, Bottega Louie, Gladstones in Malibu. Fun, interesting, exciting people, places and things to check out? The Dodgers; The LA Philharmonic – either at Disney Hall or Hollywood Bowl, or any other concert at Hollywood Bowl; Disneyland (for a first timer); the Museums at Forest Lawn in Glendale; the Griffith Park Observatory.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
I would dedicate this to the nine young people who provided the inspiration for the start of our orchestra: Amira Bennett, Michael Booth, Jasmin Burgess, Dominic Calhoun, Amber Daughtry, Akilah Morgan, Amira Petris, Edward Roberts, and DaQuan Robinson. DaQuan is the young person who first asked me to work with the group.

Website: www.icyola.org

Instagram: icyola_

Twitter: icyola_official

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NJQnb2eUlQ

Image Credits
Greg Moore