Can the Arts Heal L.A.?: Round 2

Your articles “After the Riots: How Can the Arts Help Heal L.A.?” (Sept. 6) addressed important issues and ones not taken lightly. Artists and arts organizations believe that the arts have a role not only in healing wounds but in confronting issues that lead to unrest.

We are not so naive to think that art can fix all, but the arts are a mode of communicating the hurt and pain and joy that are a part of all of our lives and of connecting human beings with one another.

We at Los Angeles Music Center Opera take issue, however, with the statement that the response of major arts institutions has been practically nonexistent. We have several programs under way and in the planning stages.

Last spring, for example, L.A. Opera produced “A Place to Call Home,” an opera that deals with the struggles of immigrants in contemporary Los Angeles. In each of 15 schools, 60 high school students performed the work with our resident artists and learned a great deal about cooperation and productive, hard work. The result was an exciting and relevant work of art that gave them pride and the audiences of their peers great pleasure.

In October, we will undertake a residency program in two South-Central L.A. high schools--Manual Arts and Fremont--in which the students will create and perform their own operas about the civil disturbances.

Other projects continue being planned, but these must be implemented in thoughtful ways. Our responses must not be ephemeral or merely knee-jerk reactions.

PETER HEMMINGS

General Director

L.A. Music Center Opera