Capital Region Cares Capital Region Cares 2017-2018 | Page 30

n
Success story
Instruments
of Change
SACRAMENTO GUITAR
SOCIETY ORCHESTRA
ENCOURAGES ONE
YOUNG MUSICIAN
TO GIVE BACK TO HIS
COMMUNITY
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CAPITAL REGION CARES 2017 | comstocksmag.com
BY Willie Clark PHOTOS: Kelly Barr
or one local teenager, all it
took was six strings to rope
together funds for charity.
Those six strings are on Alex
Bonilla’s guitar. Bonilla — 15,
and a sophomore at Jesuit High
School — has been playing in the
Sacramento Guitar Society Orchestra
for roughly five years, after his guitar
teacher suggested he gain group-per-
formance experience.
The Sacramento Guitar Society
Orchestra is one of several programs
run by the Sacramento Guitar Soci-
ety, a nonprofit that’s been around
for more than 50 years. Among these
programs, the Society also hosts con-
certs, offers scholarships for guitar
camps and facilitates guitar dona-
tions for various music programs.
The orchestra itself has been around
since 2011 and is currently conduct-
ed by Sean O’Connor, who says the
group provides an outlet for commu-
nity members to be engaged in music.
“I think it’s important because
people often participate in music only
in a passive way,” O’Connor says. “In
other words, they might go to concerts
occasionally and just go and listen …
this gives people who are not neces-
sarily full-time musicians the oppor-
tunity to actually, actively participate
in music, to create music.”
Bonilla says his young age was
never a problem, either. He’s one
of only two teenagers in the group.
“They were completely OK with it and
just said ‘Come on in, play guitar with
us,’” he says. But Bonilla isn’t merely a
player in the orchestra, he’s also using
his guitar skills to give back.
Bonilla began playing his own
shows three years ago, then in seventh
grade, apart from his performances
with the orchestra. He’s played guitar
at Sacramento locales like Peet’s Cof-
fee & Tea and the Crocker Art Muse-
um, raising money for the Sacramen-
to Guitar Society.