Youth Music Programs
Oakland Public Conservatory of Music, 3445 San Pablo Avenue, Suite 906B, Oakland, CA 94608
About
Youth Music Programs offers activities that include the Summer Music Academy, Music Classes for Girls, Afterschool Jazz, Afterschool Jazz for Girls, Black Girls Play, and the Black Banjo & Fiddle Fellowship. The program also includes Adult Music Classes, the Son Umbé: Afro-Mexican Ensemble, and a range of masterclasses, performances, workshops, and community events.
• Schedule: Open Monday–Thursday 10am–5pm and Friday 10am–3pm
Music Is eXtraordinary (MIX), which runs these programs, was founded in 2001 by musician and educator Angela M. Wellman and became a 501c3 non-profit in 2004. MIX opened its first music center, the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music (OPC), in 2005, and since then OPC has delivered masterclasses, performances, workshops, and community events. The OPC mission is to provide affordable, high-caliber, rigorous, culturally resonant music education that preserves Oakland’s vibrant musical heritage. OPC’s programs celebrate, preserve, and extend the musical heritage of the people of Oakland and the broader Bay Area by providing affordable, culturally sustaining experiences for people of all ages. Angela Wellman consulted with schools to develop music programs that reflected each school’s culture, and in 2016 she was presented with the Cultural Key to the City of Oakland by Mayor Libby Schaff. The Frederick Douglass Youth Ensemble, connected with this work, represented the United States in the First Festival of Music and Dance of African Descendants in Lima, Peru. Guests to OPC programs have included the Count Basie Orchestra, two-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master Slide Hampton, Sam Burtis, Sonny Bravo, Steve Turre, Ronnie Daliyo, Branice McKenzie, John Santos, Airto Moreira, Marcus Shelby, Juan Medrano Cotito, Rhiannon Giddens and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and professional musicians living in the Bay Area. The programs are part of a broader agenda to build a national network of Public Conservatories with a unified teaching philosophy and teaching practices that engender equity, belonging, and empathy through music, and there is a campaign to build a state-of-the-art music school in the heart of Old Oakland.
Last updated March 23, 2026.
• Schedule: Open Monday–Thursday 10am–5pm and Friday 10am–3pm
Music Is eXtraordinary (MIX), which runs these programs, was founded in 2001 by musician and educator Angela M. Wellman and became a 501c3 non-profit in 2004. MIX opened its first music center, the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music (OPC), in 2005, and since then OPC has delivered masterclasses, performances, workshops, and community events. The OPC mission is to provide affordable, high-caliber, rigorous, culturally resonant music education that preserves Oakland’s vibrant musical heritage. OPC’s programs celebrate, preserve, and extend the musical heritage of the people of Oakland and the broader Bay Area by providing affordable, culturally sustaining experiences for people of all ages. Angela Wellman consulted with schools to develop music programs that reflected each school’s culture, and in 2016 she was presented with the Cultural Key to the City of Oakland by Mayor Libby Schaff. The Frederick Douglass Youth Ensemble, connected with this work, represented the United States in the First Festival of Music and Dance of African Descendants in Lima, Peru. Guests to OPC programs have included the Count Basie Orchestra, two-time Grammy winner and NEA Jazz Master Slide Hampton, Sam Burtis, Sonny Bravo, Steve Turre, Ronnie Daliyo, Branice McKenzie, John Santos, Airto Moreira, Marcus Shelby, Juan Medrano Cotito, Rhiannon Giddens and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, and professional musicians living in the Bay Area. The programs are part of a broader agenda to build a national network of Public Conservatories with a unified teaching philosophy and teaching practices that engender equity, belonging, and empathy through music, and there is a campaign to build a state-of-the-art music school in the heart of Old Oakland.
Last updated March 23, 2026.
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