“Inspiring, heartwarming, encouraging, it gave me chills,” were comments overheard on the way out after a recent screening of the documentary “The Orchestra Chuck Built” at Cinemark Theater in Los Angeles. The short film was part pf the theater’s 32nd Pan-African Film and Arts Festival in connection with Black History Month.

The focus of the innovative short film is Palos Verdes Peninsula resident and music director at Rolling Hills Methodist Church in Rolling Hills Estates Chuck Dickerson and his Inner-City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles.

“Most youth orchestras do not live and breathe in the Inner City,” Dickerson comments in the filmmaker’s interview. “Most youth orchestras operate in communities that are all white, and so the kids are all white,”

Because of historical problems, few people of color play in classical orchestras. Dickerson is determined to change that and no better place to start than with the young. Back in 2009, a handful of inner-city high school music students asked him to help them with their repertoire over the summer. Word got around, and the handful grew, and today, ICYOLA has over a hundred players and is the largest primarily African-American youth orchestra in the country. They rehearse every Sunday evening and prepare for half a dozen free concerts a year, culminating in a spectacular finale at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

There is no audition and no tuition. “You walk in the door, and you’re part of the family,” Dickerson says. And if you don’t have an instrument, you’ll get one free.

Even so, the standards are high. “We don’t play abridged music. We play the original scores. So when they come here, they’re, frankly, a little behind,” Dickerson admits.

Although some of his charges have become professionals in the music industry, Dickerson’s objective is to provide his players with skills that will help them succeed in life. The pursuit of excellence through determination and repetition are skills that transfer to all aspects of life as does team work, leadership and respect for others. The orchestra gives the players an alternative to all the negative influences in their environment and gives inner-city kids an opportunity that didn’t previously exist.

Conductor Chuck Dickerson and a colleague at CSUDH with Professor Carlos Royal

Dickerson was born into a musical family. Both his mother and father played the piano, and at age three, he started piano lessons. He has the rare absolute or perfect pitch, and plays many other instruments, including all the brasses. “Music infused me in the home and in the church,” he said.

He grew up in Compton and attended a local church “in the middle of the hood,” as he likes to say. He first became aware of the difficulties people of color had in this country during the Watts Riots in 1965. That may have motivated him to study law at Howard University in Washington DC. Back in Los Angeles, he practiced law for 30 years. “But music was always part of my life,” Dickerson says. And in addition to the youth orchestra, he directs choirs at churches and temples in the area. With an additional master’s degree in conducting from California State University, Los Angeles, he also teaches in the music department at California State University, Dominguez Hills. “I work twenty-five hours a day, 8 days a week,” he says.

Conductor Chuck Dickerson answers questions after the screening of “ The Orchestra That Chuck Built”

The documentary also features interviews with the players who praise their tireless leader, mentor coach and teacher for his dedication to excellence. “I have learned so much from just being around Chuck,” one student says. “There aren’t many good role models in South Central Los Angeles.” Music has changed their lives, and they feel that any kind of music should be available to everyone.

“A lot was given to me,” Dickerson says. “And if I don’t pass it on, I haven’t paid my rent here on earth.”

The film closes with a rousing rendition of the hymn “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” sometimes referred to as “The Black National Anthem” taped at the orchestra’s concert at Walt Disney Hall. Conducting them at Disney Hall is an experience that Dickerson, now age 73, says is “like being on a rocket and just taking off.”

ICYOLA is a non-profit organization that recently received a grant to purchase a building in Angeles – a liquor store and a market. With an estimated cost of ten million dollars to convert the building to its new purpose will take some time, although the organization has already raised two and a half million.

“Inspiring, heartwarming, encouraging, it gave me chills,” were comments overheard on the way out after a recent screening of the documentary “The Orchestra Chuck Built” at Cinemark Theater in Los Angeles. The short film was part pf the theater’s 32nd Pan-African Film and Arts Festival in connection with Black History Month.

The focus of the innovative short film is Palos Verdes Peninsula resident and mud music director at Rolling Hills Methodist Church in Rolling Hills Estates Chuck Dickerson and his Inner-City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles.

“Most youth orchestras do not live and breathe in the Inner City,” Dickerson comments in the filmmaker’s interview. “Most youth orchestras operate in communities that are all white, and so the kids are all white.”

Visit their website at https://icyola.org

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Kari H. Sayers BIO

With a BA in English and an MA in linguistics from California State University, Long Beach, Kari Sayers went with her husband to Saudi Arabia, where she first worked as a music teacher at Riyadh International Community School and then as a journalist for the English newspapers the Saudi Gazette and the Arab News as well as in-flight magazines. When she returned to Southern California, she taught literature, college composition, and English as a Second Language at Marymount California University in Rancho Palos Verdes, while freelancing as a theater, classical concert, and opera reviewer for local newspapers and magazines in the Los Angeles area.. In addition to authoring the novels Roses Where Thorns Grow, Under the Linden Tree, and the soon-to-be-released Justice for Lizzie, all published by Melange Books in Minnesota, she is the developer and editor of the anthology Views and Values, published by Cengage. Now widowed,. Kari lives in the Los Angeles area.