Albany Youth Orchestra is a program of Mid-Valley Prelude Sinfonia, a 501(c)(3) registered non-profit organization whose goal is to provide quality, affordable opportunities for youth in the Albany, Oregon area to play violin, viola, cello, or string bass in a group setting. We run school-based programs in partnership with local public schools and provide small group and private instruction in our own music school facility. We take pride in including our Hispanic community in our programs. We have classes at a bilingual school, have bilingual staff, and publicly communicate bilingually. We are searching for teaching artists with culturally-specific strengths to teach with us. Learning to play an instrument has a lasting beneficial benefit on brain development as well as on social and emotional development. Most musicians will agree that playing music adds many benefits to their lives. Our hope is to bring this experience to as many local youth as possible, so that they can experience for themselves the joy, satisfaction and pride of playing an instrument. We believe that great music education should be accessible to every child. Our scholarship program provides assistance with tuition and rental costs. Our ultimate goal is to have the community financial support to make music freely available to every child in our community.