Social Change Through Music.
About BRAVO Youth Orchestras
BRAVO Youth Orchestras is a highly esteemed and influential non-profit organization that connects diverse students in Northern Portland with mentorship opportunities and multiple pathways to engage in the arts. Through its rich in-school and after-school programming, BRAVO Youth Orchestras helps boost academic achievement while supporting the development of creative, confident, community-minded artists. Since the program’s inception, BRAVO has helped thousands of students develop their own unique talents while promoting social justice, equity and advancement in the Pacific Northwest.
Our Services
After School
Through intensive orchestral instruction and performing arts practices, BRAVO offers dynamic after-school programs that foster teamwork, self-control, and focus.
Pre-K
The BRAVO organization provides one hour of weekly music and performing arts instruction to early elementary students in various schools.
Community
Under the baton of Maestro Giancarlo Castro D’Addona, BCO offers the opportunity to students, BRAVO’s staff, and community musicians to play and learn new repertoire.
At a Glance
2024-2025 School Year
100 - 200
Hours of music training and
performance in a year
45+
Concerts presented
each year
330
Total number
of students
11
Guest artist visits
in a year
10
Number of schools served
afterschool - 6; in-school - 4
17
Students family events
Our Students
Our students range in age from 3 to 18 but stand collectively as models of the future, emblazoned with the inclusive, vibrant spirit and hopes of our organization’s founders. BRAVO Youth Orchestras launched its tuition-free program at the Rosa Park School, one of Portland’s highly impoverished public school populations. With families stemming from five continents and eighteen languages spoken, our students are among the most diverse in our quadrant of the nation and we leverage that fact to promote collaboration over competition or confusion.
In addition to their diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, our students are stewards of hope, social change and acceptance; through their rich programming they learn and perform music from a variety of folk traditions and countries in honor of their classmates’ heritages. Through our commitment in increasing access to high-quality music and arts education for all we are shaping tomorrow’s leaders and global citizens for social change.