M
usic lifts children’s
spirits and enriches
their lives, but not all
kids get the chance to make their
own music, and that’s something
Leela Pratt, executive director of
Young Performers International, is
working to remedy. It all started
when she was aboard a boat in the
Windward Islands in the Eastern
Caribbean Sea on a vacation she’d
spent years saving for. “I would
lie in these big nets and think,
‘What do I really want to do?’” she
recalls. The answer was creating a
community for children using music.
”I wanted all children, regardless
of their economic circumstances, to
have the best instruction,” she says,
explaining that giving them all the
same quality and number of lessons
would lead to competence, self-
confidence, fulfillment and an open
heart.
Pratt had a privileged upbringing,
but music made her the happiest.
She liked harmony and the
experience of everyone singing
together. “That’s what I decided to
do and never looked back,” says
Pratt. She started teaching music
when she was a student at Vassar
College and gave lessons to earn the
money to pay for phone calls to her
boyfriend. She later used music to
teach English on a tiny Greek Island.
By 2000, she was the head of the
upper-level music program at
Redwood Day, a school in Oakland,
and that summer she rented space
at the Oakland California (Mormon)
Temple, where Young Performers
International (YPI) got its start. Over
the years, YPI added music programs
in San Francisco and Marin County,
and eventually Pratt moved to
Marin and made it YPI’s home base.
YPI offers programs for children
from 3 to 14. “We start kids at
3, because they’re able to hold a
beat,” Pratt explains. She describes
a 3-year-old playing the drums
while his father accompanies him
on bass, and says it’s fantastic.
Students have the opportunity
to express themselves through
music instruction, performance,
composition and other performing
arts, and the pleasure grows when
kids make music in bands. “You
take the joy you get personally
from music and add a band, and
it’s one of the best things in the
world,” says Pratt. YPI offers rock
and jazz bands, and Pratt recalls a
band called Living Proof, which got
its name because the students were
out to prove that rock ’n’ roll is alive
and well. During a performance,
one of the band’s members wasn’t
satisfied with the way they ended a
song, so she explained her concern
to the audience and asked if they’d
like to hear it again—and then they
did it over. It’s an example of music
giving young people the confidence
to tackle a difficult situation. “These
MARIN ARTS & CULTURE 21