A rehearsal of the Young Musicians Program. Photography by Lauren Allen.
Sarah Segura, a senior at Booker T. Washington High School, found her love of music through choir. In 2019, that love for music grew when she joined the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Kim Noltemy Young Musicians program.
Young Musicians provides music and arts education programs in southern Dallas schools that lack the funding to include music education in their daily curriculum, serving over 2,150 students. The program provides orchestral music education, instruments, performance experience, and mentorship opportunities at no cost to students and families.
Segura learned about the program in the summer following her fifth grade year and was hesitant at first.
“I was starting to get ready for middle school, and my mom, out of nowhere, she just decided to come to my room, and she told me, ‘You’re going to start learning how to play the violin,’” Segura said. “I was a bit taken by surprise when that happened, because I never expected to start it, and I didn’t really want to at the time … And then when I started, I actually enjoyed it a lot, and it was just really fun to do. So I just decided to continue.”
She began her time in the Young Musicians program at the former Maria Moreno Elementary, where she first learned to play the violin, later growing her skills to join the advanced orchestra.
“And then, earlier this year, my director, he decided to add me to viola, just because he wanted to give me the experience with trying something new and to help out with our viola section, because there’s so little violas in our section right now,” she said. “So he decided to move me over and then he helped me a lot to learn the different types of notes in the clef, how the strings work, how to play viola, and then, what type of sound is necessary to make on the viola for the sound to have its full potential.”
Through the program, Segura has not only grown as a musician but also as a leader.
“When you’re working in an orchestra, when you’re a part of it, you get to listen to the people around you. And if you know something and somebody else doesn’t, it’s basically your job, even if you want to or not, but your job as a community (member to) go ahead and help each other out and help each other learn and expand,” she said. “So I kind of got used to going ahead, and if I knew something that somebody else didn’t, I would start helping them or give them advice, or people would give me advice. And so it was just like a whole community based off of learning and trust and just having fun making music together.”
As Segura prepares to graduate, she has three final performances with Young Musicians coming up. The first this month is the Young Musician & Young Strings Joint Recital at the Meyerson Concert Hall on May 3. She said that the concert will be her final one “at home,” since the orchestra typically plays the venue every two to three months.
She will also perform at the grand opening of Halperin Park on May 9, an opportunity she views as a way to expand the orchestra’s possibilities.
“In general, to be able to play an instrument is already a really big deal, because I’ve played at churches before. I’ve played here at school before. I’ve played solos, I’ve played ensembles. I’ve met a lot of my friends who also play violin, all thanks to violin because we had something in common,” she said. “To be able to share that with our community, it opens a lot more doors for people just like me, who probably never thought of learning an instrument or being able to learn an instrument, either due to financial problems or just because they don’t have time to. So it’s a really nice event to go ahead and play out in the open for just anybody to walk by and see and maybe get inspired to do the same.”
Finally, Segura will close out her time with Young Musicians at the El Sistema USA National Symposium in Houston later this month. As a senior this year, she will be among the program’s first graduates.
“I’m like a sort of pioneer for this right now,” she said. “So it’s a bit weird, but it’s also kind of exciting, because I get to pave way for what people like me, what my friends in a couple of years will go through, probably, and maybe either I’ll continue music, which I would really love to and I’m planning on doing, or maybe go down another path, and then they see that, ‘Hey, I could still do music potentially, but I could also do something else, like health, be a nurse, learn how to become a doctor, Speak law, become a lawyer, and all that stuff.’”
