By Darlene Donloe
Contributing Writer
WATTS — Jeffrey Arredondo still remembers the first day he walked into what would become his life’s work. He was 6 years old, trailing his older brother and mother into a gym near Nickerson Gardens. He wasn’t supposed to participate.
“I didn’t think I belonged,” Arredondo, now 23, recalls. “I kept saying, I don’t know how to do this.”
Billy Mitchell, the premier jazz pianist who had posted the flyer at his brother’s school, was showing videos of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The promise was audacious: Stick with us, and one day you’ll end up at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
It happened. The Compton kid who learned violin through the Watts-Willowbrook Music Academy, has now performed at Disney Hall three years in a row.
On Sept. 12, Mitchell will make that promise again.
The academy, a project of the Scholarship Audition Performance Preparatory Academy, will open its fall session with registration and orientation from 10 a.m. to noon at Sieman Community Center, 7651 S. Central Ave. Families can register at www.sappa.net or on site. A parent or guardian must be present.
The academy offers a “non-tuition” program. There is a $10 registration fee, with no weekly tuition. Fall classes are Saturdays from 10 a.m. to noon with string classes from 11 a.m. to noon. The program can take between 75 and 100 students.
For Mitchell, 82, who founded the academy 15 years ago, the work has never been just about the music.
“The whole social link that music created in the generations of young people in Watts when schools had robust music programs, it gave the community something to hold onto and be proud of,” Mitchell said. “And then they disappeared. A child without the arts is only halfway developed.”
What worries him this fall is not talent. It’s turnout.
“I’ve been disappointed in the last few years with the low turnout, especially Black ones,” he said. “The pandemic has affected the response. It changed a lot of the attitudes of young kids.”
He traces it to stress on families.
“There’s been an increase in the stress level — economic and psychological issues for parents,” he said. “Some parents and some kids don’t have that ‘stay with it’ attitude, and some parents may not have the time.”
That attitude is built into the program.
Parents must register children in person, help organize rehearsal time and attend workshops. Mitchell said ensemble work is central.
“You learn how to play together, camaraderie and cooperation. You learn team practice and work,” he said.
On Sept. 12, many will start from scratch.
“They will learn how to make sound and how to read,” Mitchell said.
When music becomes a $60-$100-an-hour luxury and schools have what he calls “a teacher going around one day a week,” Mitchell said, “The culture goes down. There is a slow decline.”
“We’ve been out here 15 years,” he said. “We also get no love from politicians. We have the best and most committed teachers in the world. The finances have sustained us. We need more to expand.”
For a child who walks in convinced they aren’t musical, his message is unchanged.
“Everybody has music in them,” he said. “If they can develop the patience and enjoy practicing, it can take you around the world.”
One reason they might stay is now in the string section.
Dale Breidenthal, 66, retired in May 2025 after 42 years as a violinist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
For a decade, Mitchell asked her to teach. This summer she finally said yes, teaching Monday to Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon. She will continue in the fall with a Saturday schedule.
“Billy is the highest level of jazz musician,” said Breidenthal, who grew up in San Marino and has played since she was 8. “He is so dedicated to this school. That inspired me. The people who come to SAPPA — that’s their community. I like that feeling of community.”
On what it feels like to go from playing for thousands at Disney Hall to possibly changing one child’s life at Sieman, she doesn’t hesitate.
“It’s the best feeling,” she said. “It’s that connection.”
She rejects the idea that classical music doesn’t belong in South L.A.
“I say that’s not true,” she said. “With Gustavo Dudamel — we would do classical the first half and go into Nas the second half. Music is music. I loved playing with LL Cool J at Coachella.”
Music has several meanings for Breidenthal.
“When you can play for yourself, it’s the joy of music — that’s what I hope I instill in the students,” she said.
If Breidenthal is where classical music has been, Arredondo is where the Academy can take it.
His brother Carlos, now a luthier, picked violin for him. His sister Brittany still plays cello in the program. What started as an extracurricular activity became a profession. He now teaches, performs with the Bellflower Symphony, helps with the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles and Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles, and has played at Mount Rushmore and in Washington, D.C., in front of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
“The Watts Music Academy helped me see that people like me did belong in the orchestra,” said Arredondo, who noted the lack of Black and Latino musicians in many orchestras.
For families considering Sept. 12, he added: “We have all kinds of music, and we start with classical. A lot of our teachers have performed with Tyler, The Creator, Kehlani, Metro Boomin, and Kendrick Lamar.”
For the kid who says “I can’t,” he says: “It’s not about what you can or can’t do. It’s about what you can or can’t try to do.”
He describes Mitchell as genuine.
“Truly selfless,” Arredondo said. “He is doing something to benefit low-income communities and a nonprofit that doesn’t generate a lot of money — when he doesn’t have to.”
That continuity — from a 6-year-old who didn’t think he belonged to a 23-year-old tuning a child’s first violin — is what Mitchell is counting on to fill the room.
Darlene Donloe is a freelance reporter for Wave Newspapers who covers South Los Angeles. She can be reached at ddonloe@gmail.com.
