Charles (Chuck) Dickerson is the Founder, Conductor and Executive Director of the Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (ICYOLA) and the South Side Chicago Youth Orchestra (SSCYO).
The Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles is the largest majority African American orchestra in America. Founded in 2009, ICYOLA is a California 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that transforms the lives and minds of young people in Inner City Los Angeles through high quality music education. It teaches inner city youth the great music of the world, and provides opportunities for them to perform that music in the most magnificent settings of our community. It prepares its members for advanced study and high caliber success in music and otherwise, and instills the ancillary benefits that music instruction provides: problem solving skills, critical thinking, self-reliance, self-confidence, self-discipline, and the crystallization and pursuit of meaningful purpose.
The South Side Chicago Youth Orchestra is an exciting orchestra program offered to young instrumentalists who play at least at the intermediate level. Established in 2019, the orchestra teaches developing musicians the great orchestral repertoire of the world and provides performance opportunities in some of the most magnificent settings of Chicago. Like ICYOLA, it uses orchestral protocol and practice to prepare its members for high caliber success in music and other disciplines, and it instills the ancillary benefits that music instruction provides: problem solving skills, critical thinking, self-reliance, self-confidence, self-discipline, and the crystallization and pursuit of meaningful purpose.
To learn more, please visit the websites of these orchestras by selecting from the drop-down menu above.