bring the healing power of music to those in need
Our mission
To create opportunities for deep musical encounter in places where live performance rarely happens.
Since 2011, Street Symphony has been dedicated to using music as a bridge between worlds that rarely meet. Our artists have presented more than 3,000 performances and workshops in shelters, jails, transitional housing sites, and community centers.
Impact
Over a Decade of Healing Through Music
Street Symphony has brought live music, human connection, and creative community to our neighbors experiencing homelessness, incarceration, addiction, and recovery in Skid Row. What began as a single act of service has grown into a sustained movement built on trust, artistic excellence, and the belief that everyone deserves access to beauty and belonging.
11+
years of continuous service in Los Angeles
10,000+
people reached through performances, workshops, and community programs
200+
artists in the Street Symphony creative community
1,000+
live music events delivered in Skid Row
5
long-standing monthly programs with trusted Skid Row partners
Programs
Street Symphony musicians are trained to uphold the highest artistic standards while practicing humility, adaptability, and care.
We listen beyond the notes we play: to the room, to the audience, to the stories that emerge between phrases. In turn, participants encounter music as an experience of dignity and recognition. Together, we create experiences of connection, dignity, and hope.
Music with a Mission
Music With A Mission is a free concert series held at the Midnight Mission, featuring world class ensembles performing directly for residents and the surrounding community. The program is open to the public and creates a space where people experiencing homelessness can connect with others through live music in a safe, supportive environment.
Volunteers are welcome to join and help sustain this ongoing work.
Messiah Project
Our flagship initiative, the Messiah Project, gathers hundreds of musicians and residents from the Skid Row community each December to perform Handel’s Messiah together in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. Professional soloists, community choirs, and participants from shelters and recovery programs perform their own musical compositions created through Street Symphony workshops.
Downtown Women’s Center
For many women experiencing homelessness and seeking community, Skid Row can be a particularly hostile environment, and Downtown Women’s Center is the only provider organization focused on serving women in Skid Row. Every other Wednesday, Street Symphony musicians and Downtown Women’s Center residents share meditative musical offerings to convene vulnerable spaces of community and conversation.
Music for Change
A particpatory, weekly process group convened with staff members at Skid Row reentry centers, including individuals paroled from life sentences in California Prisons. pictured: Street Symphony’s jazz band featuring saxophonist David Sills.
RE/Sound Festival
The RE/Sound Festival is an annual one-day event produced by Street Symphony in partnership with The Midnight Mission. It combines live music, resource services, community vendors, and volunteer-driven outreach in one of the city’s most marginalized neighborhoods.
Midnight Strings
Midnight Strings is Street Symphony’s dedicated 12-week guitar workshop and performance residency at The Midnight Mission (TMM) in downtown Los Angeles. The program brings world-class musicianship and consistent creative mentorship to people experiencing homelessness, addiction recovery, and reentry.
Conducted inside TMM’s Education and Music Room, Midnight Strings invites participants to learn, rehearse, and perform guitar music as a shared practice of focus, collaboration, and joy.
Women’s Voices
Women’s Voices is a 12-week songwriting and performance residency designed and led entirely by women, for women. Developed by Street Symphony in partnership with the Downtown Women’s Center (DWC) in Los Angeles—the only service organization on Skid Row exclusively dedicated to supporting women experiencing homelessness—the program invites participants to write, rehearse, and perform original songs that tell their stories in their own words.
