Suzanna Guzman of LACHSA with Alex Stoddard of CS Music
CS Music loves to spotlight high school programs, especially when they are as inspiring as the group at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. Suzanna Guzman is the Co-Director of the Opera Company there. She shared with us all about the program and her inspirational students. If you have program or project you think CS Music would be interested in spotlighting, email our online magazine editor, Mary Taylor at mary@csmusic.net.
1. Tell us a little about your background and what led you to start at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts – LACHSA:
Suzanna Guzman:
I made my opera debut in the late ’80’s by total accident. Music was not a part of my family at all. I wanted to be in theatre. As a matter of fact I got my Equity card in 1981 with the Bilngual Fdn of the Arts. I sang in a rock band for year and lost my voice while on the road. Vocal therapy included learning an ‘aria’ and my voice teacher tricked me into singing an audition (I thought I was singing for a throat doctor). My first opera that I ever saw was with me singing the title role of Carmen. Decades later, I had a very respectable career in the opera industry and a Grammy nod under my belt. But in the great Recession of 2007, opera companies were shortening their seasons, going bankrupt and I found myself for the first time in decades, scrambling for work, a single mom of a high school performer. He is the one who told me about LACHSA, and even though it is on the campus of my own alma mater CSULA, two miles from the house where I grew up that my father built, I had never heard of it. When he was accepted, I saw firsthand the astonishing work this tuition-free public high school did for the County of Los Angeles. I had the great fortune to be hired as the Director of Community Engagement. They allowed me to continue working when my opera jobs and tv jobs came up so I paralleled two full time careers. When opera regenerated, I left LACHSA to re-focus on my career and now I have returned six hours a week to co-direct the Opera Company @LACHSA with friend, tenor and LACHSA Alumnus, Chris Hunter.
2. How would you describe the program at LACHSA?
LACHSA is a tuition-free public high school serving students from every corner of L.A. County. It is a college prep high school from 8AM til lunch and then conservatory in the afternoon until 4pm. Entrance into one of five disciplines, Music, Theatre, Dance, Visual and Cinematic Arts, is by audition with approximately 1000 students vying for one of 140 spots in all departments.
The Opera Company at LACHSA is part of the Music Department. All vocal students must take music theory, sight singing, choir, and choose a performing arts category, Jazz, Tech or Opera. Opera Company members must come to a three-day intensive prior to school starting, audition for the season annually and attend after school rehearsals. LACHSA hosts an annual performing arts college fair with over 90 particpants. Our students and other invited high school classical music students from nearby campuses, do a masterclass for the visiting professors to glean what it means to apply to their programs. This year our featured program was Boston University Tanglewood Institute.
We have our own mission statement:
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It is the mission of The Opera Company at LACHSA to provide an environment of practical performance experience in opera and classical musical theatre. Presenting a season of two fully staged productions with orchestra, instruction is tailored to nurture and support the high school voice in all aspects of performance techniques. The Opera Company at LACHSA strives to prepare its students for university/conservatory acceptance or entrance to the professional stage, in an atmosphere of academic and artistic integrity that nurtures creativity and professionalism. |
3. How many and what kind of productions do you do each year? How many kids are involved? Our company chooses 25 students by audition each year from 9th-12th grade. Created by director Stephanie Vlahos, the productions are done in English and have a bent towards social justice themes. Last season we did a two-hour version of Rigoletto- aka #rigoandmetoo -an homage to the ‘Me too’ movement where during curtain call, two “FBI agents” stepped in and arrested ‘Mr. Mantua’. Rigoletto was a Michael Cohen-esque figure and the Duke was in a boy band, Duca Duca. The Opera Company performs at least two fully stage productions: one opera and one classical musical theatre piece. According to Opera America we are the ONLY high school company that performs a season with orchestra! This season it is Amahl and the Night Visitors and West Side Story in tandem with the Musical Theatre, Dance and Theatre departments and our own orchestra in the pit. Yup. LACHSA has a super orchestra that James Conlon HIMSELF conducted! (Britten’s The Little Sweep ’13)
4. What is your favorite part about your job? My favorite part? There are a million. Do you know how cool it is to hear a 17 year old sing Maddalena and hear her say how much she loves the quartet! Right now, in our bilingual production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, the mother speaks only Spanish and Amahl is bilingual. It is a unparalleled joy to watch these kids surrender to the beauty of the music, laugh at the humor of the story and rise to the challenge of story telling with this art form.
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5. What do you (or those in your program) do to promote positive growth in the students? Primarily we give them tools: movement Dance & Stage combat, sight singing, theory, rep. All LACHSA music students must have their own private teacher (many are scholarships) but we vocally warm up every class and try to give them a realistic picture of the future. We encourage and support their academics. Visits to our local opera company productions–the L.A. Opera, L.A. Phil–let them see first hand what they aspire to. We also enter regional competitions (JRAYS, Jerry Hermans) and have the students audition for the Spotlight Awards and Young Arts so they can see where they stand and work accordingly. There is a place for every voice be it church, choir, chorus. They get exposed to it all. Our students come from such a vast socio-economic background that they are humble, passionate and fearless. Many travel by public transport for hours just to get to school. They make themselves available to do outreach for the community. It gives them perspective. This month (November ’19) they will appear at Walt Disney Concert Hall as a part of the Music Center Educations Very Special Arts Festival. 5000 special needs students will perform songs onstage, and the LACHSA students will appear singing their solos, also providing activities like face-painting and disco dancing (their favorite). It’s terrific!
6. What would you say is most unique about the program?
ALL LACHSA faculty have a special dispensation: No credentials needed (many have them anyway) but professional life experience is a must. LACHSA arts faculty are all working or retired professionals and among them are:
- Kenny Dennis – (Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderly) Beginning Jazz Ensemble
- Jeremy Guskin – (’til death series regular) Theatre
- Fiona Lummis – (Netherland Dance) Dance
- Darren Dalton – (actor/writer Red Dawn, Brotherhood of Justice) Cinematic Arts
- Liz Young – (Guggenheim Fellow) Visual Arts
- Erica Robson – (Chorus Line National and International Tours) Musical Theatre
- Pat Bass – (Fifth Dimension) Vocal Jazz
Our students experience real opera. Our costumers, makeup artists, lights, sound, sets are all pros. HOW COOL IS THAT! Chris and I give them a program that I myself wish with all my heart I could have had at that age.
7. In your opinion, what is the most challenging things that your students face as aspiring performers? What does your program do to try to overcome that?
The biggest challenge: Time. There are not enough hours in the day. Many students say our motto: “You can sleep when you go to college!” We must have after school and Tech week rehearsals. Our parents bring meals for the company. They carpool. They work on the train. But in the end, they know that they are part of a tribe that shares a passion and that only happens rarely. And it is happening to them! Plus, so so so many elementary and middle schools have cut or severely reduced funding for their arts programs. We do a TON of outreach. I partner with our L.A. programs to provide free or low cost tuition to after school and weekend arts. It is a challenge.
8. Any other thoughts or advice you’d like to share?
Only this: LACHSA has a 94-97% matriculation rate to the best schools in the world:. Among them: Juilliard, NEC. BOCO, Mannes School of Music, Manhattan School, San Francisco Conservatory, RADA, RISD, Cooper Union, NYU, USC Film, New School BU, Berklee College, and ALL of the academics as well, UMICH, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, all the Cal States, and many professional companies. This year our students received over 5 million dollars in scholarship awards for 144 students. All schools should have intensive arts. It doesn’t simply teach technique. It teaches and promotes discipline, working in ensembles and most importantly, it nurtures creative thinking. Who would not want that for their child. A future of creative minds. I wanna be there!
Here is a little sample. The kids performing the Shepherds chorus.
