3301 Price Avenue
Cincinnati, OH45205
MYCincinnati Summer Camp and Price Hill Creative Community Festival
MYCincinnati, now in its 10th year, is a free, daily youth orchestra program for children in Price Hill, Cincinnati. The mission is to use ensemble-based music as a tool for youth development and community engagement by providing children with access to free, intense, high-quality music education. Founded in 2011 with 11 students, the program has grown to over 100 children in 2021. Students enrolled in MYCincinnati learn violin, viola, cello, double bass, flute, clarinet, oboe, or percussion.
MYCincinnati is modeled after Venezuela's revolutionary youth orchestra program, El Sistema, which has garnered international attention for its inspiring message of social change through music. MYCincinnati is Cincinnati’s first and only El Sistema-inspired program, and joins an international community of hundreds of similar programs on every continent except Antarctica. MYCincinnati is a program within the nonprofit organization Price Hill Will, and to date the only El Sistema-inspired program in the US that is part of a community development corporation and thus uniquely positioned to have a transformative effect on the entire community.
A grant from the Dater Foundation supported MYCincinnati’s 9th annual summer camp, culminating in the 5th annual Price Hill Creative Community Festival (PHCCF), a free performing arts and neighborhood festival hosted by MYCincinnati. The mission of the festival is to use collaborative performing arts as a tool to build a more creative and equitable community. The festival brings together world-class professional artists with the musicians of MYCincinnati to create brand new, collaborative work. In past years, performances happened over two days across five venues in East Price Hill, and drew over 1,500.
In 2020, due to Covid, the festival was moved to an online format. Five groups of five to eight MYCincinnati musicians worked with professional artists from around the country, as well as with MYCincinnati’s own world-class teaching artists online for seven weeks. Each of the five groups produced a video showcasing their new collaborative work, and the performances were streamed during an online version of the festival. Each project was beautiful and unique, and can be viewed on MYCincinnati’s YouTube Channel. At a time when many were feeling isolated, this project helped bring young people together to make music, and bring the community together to celebrate the accomplishments of Price Hill’s youth.
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