The Riverside Arts Academy is a vibrant, intensive arts mentoring program, providing inspirational and creative arts education to children and youth of Riverside as a tool for community transformation. This award-winning program, under the innovative leadership of Founding President Collette Lee, provides over 50 hours of instruction weekly in arts classes including strings, band, mariachi, orchestra, percussion, and more; to serve 2,000 students annually. The flagship ensembles: the Riverside Youth Orchestra, the Riverside Honor Band, the Riverside Children’s Choir, and the Mariachi Juvenil de Riverside perform at high-profile events and performances across the region. 

RAA’s impactful community board provides an active and supportive role in shaping the program and consists of influential community leaders from many sectors including Alvord Unified School District, California Baptist University, California University of San Bernardino, the City of Riverside, La Sierra University, Latino Network, Riverside City College, Riverside Fire Department, Riverside Parks and Recreation, Riverside Police Department, Riverside Unified School District, Windermere Tower Properties, University of California, Riverside and many others. 

The Eastside School of the Arts, which later became the Riverside School of the Arts, was the vision of Ward 2 City Councilman Andy Melendrez, and founded with the support of Ralph Nunez Park and Rec Director and a team of dedicated city staff. 

By July of 2013, class sizes reached 500 students. Encountering issues of sustainable funding and closure, the community and local businesses including Windermere Tower Properties, The Latino Network, Altura Credit Union, The Group, and the Riverside Police Foundation made a commitment to raise funds to meet the needs of the community. 

Over the next two years, a high-profile and influential community board met alongside the city to create a strategic plan to focus on excellence in addition to access. A substantial campaign began to collaborate with higher educational institutions and professional artists. These efforts, backed by the new strategic plan’s emphasis on a high level of student performance in the arts, brought in partnerships with the University of California Riverside, California Baptist University, Riverside City College, La Sierra University, the Alvord Unified School District, the Riverside Unified School District, and California Riverside Ballet. 

In early 2015, due to a conflict with a fellow educational institute with a similar name, the Riverside School of the Arts became the Riverside Arts Academy. By June of 2015, RAA was offering programs at Arlanza, Casa Blanca and Eastside staffed with high-caliber instructors teaching a myriad of courses including ballet, folklorico, music, and art. RAA became an affiliate of the Harmony Project, a nationally

recognized program based in Los Angeles. With momentum and community awareness building, RAA received their largest private donation to date from sisters, Dolores Mumper, Elizabeth Stralka and Kathleen Hamilton, and their organization “Art ‘N Kids.” That donation enabled RAA to hire their very first music director, Alpin Hong. 

In Spring of 2016, the Riverside Arts Academy officially established its own stand-alone non-profit while maintaining a strong working relationship with the City of Riverside, under the leadership of the elected Founding President, Collette Lee and a dedicated and empowered board of directors. In the fall of 2016, RAA began new, high-quality initiatives including a TK through 3rd-grade music and literacy program in collaboration with Alvord Unified School District. Riverside Unified School District’s Arts Programs, under the direction of Annemarie Guzy, Arts Specialist, commenced after-school instruction at three elementary school sites. The Riverside String Orchestra, under the direction of Alpin Hong was formed. During 2016 and 2017, RAA’s caliber and high-quality programming grew and grew. 

In January 2018, a second site, RAA @ CBU, was started under Dr. Stephen Posegate and an additional strings program began at Foothill Elementary School in Alvord Unified School District. 

In the summer of 2018, Noemy Wheeler became interim Music Director, and the First Summer Music program started with over 110 students. In July 2018, the Riverside Arts Academy, in collaboration with the Riverside Unified School District, was awarded its first major grant in the amount of $45,000 from the PRESTO grant through El Sistema USA, a prestigious initiative promoting emerging music programs. Soon thereafter The Riverside Arts Academy became an affiliate of the El Sistema USA, an internationally recognized program. 

In November 2018, the Riverside Arts Academy hired a new music director and conductor of the Riverside Youth Orchestra, Dr. Gene Moon. Under Dr. Moon’s direction, the Riverside Youth Orchestra was launched as a full orchestra program for youth, the first in Riverside’s history outside of the school systems. In 2018, there were over 2,500 participants, and an additional 1,910 students enrolled in the music Boost program at Alvord Unified. In 2019, both sites at RAA@CBU and RAA@Cesar Chavez reached maximum enrollment numbers. 

RAA exercised a lot of flexibility and resilience in 2020 and a majority of 2021. With the surge of COVID-19 and the subsequent closures of our schools and community facilities, RAA had to quickly transition our music instruction to an online format. Our quick thinking and “all in this together” mentality proved to be successful.

Enrollment for our online program averaged 160 students per week and we successfully retained all of our Teaching Artists for the remainder of the school year. 

In summer of 2021, RAA hired our current music director, Dr. NovéDeypalan. The Riverside Children’s Choir was relaunched, a Mariachi program was restarted and programs continue to grow towards pre-pandemic enrollment. The spring finale concert in 2022 included some of its highest audience attendees yet. 

Riverside Arts Academy continues to embrace an attitude of service to our youth and hope to change the course of our city using music and the arts as the vehicle to keep kids engaged and raise academic achievement, which in the long run will create a higher quality of life for all in our city.